Vancian

V4A1N1C3I1A1N1

adjective

Of or relating to Jack Vance (1916–2013), American writer of mystery, fantasy, and science fiction stories.

Scrabble 12

Meanings

adjectiveVancian (comparative more Vancian, superlative most Vancian)

comparative more Vancian · superlative most Vancian · alternative Vancean

  1. literatureOf or relating to Jack Vance (1916–2013), American writer of mystery, fantasy, and science fiction stories.
    1 more example

    Vance has, in short, more than any other science fiction writer ‘colonised’ the entirely new imaginative space created by the nineteenth- and twentieth-century science of anthropology, […] Is it merely local colour? To answer that, one has to note, beneath the constant Vancean surface of strange ‘xenography’,⁸ the recurrent Vancean theme of human ‘plasticity’.

    2016, Tom Shippey, ““People are Plastic”: Jack Vance and the Dilemma of Cultural Relativism”, in Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, →ISBN, →JSTOR, page 111

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

Vancian. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Vancian

MLA

“Vancian.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Vancian. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Vancian,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Vancian.

Source: Vancian on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.