Withnailesque

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adjective

Reminiscent of Withnail and I (1987), a British black comedy film about two young, unemployed, binge-drinking actors living in a squalid flat in 1960s London.

Scrabble 28

Meanings

adjectiveWithnailesque (comparative more Withnailesque, superlative most Withnailesque)

comparative more Withnailesque · superlative most Withnailesque · alternative Withnail-esque

  1. rareReminiscent of Withnail and I (1987), a British black comedy film about two young, unemployed, binge-drinking actors living in a squalid flat in 1960s London.

    And seventy years later the last of Pentonville Road's original arch-windowed townhouses, two-million-quid jobs anywhere else, now wallowed in Withnailesque decay […]

    2003, Tim Moore, Do Not Pass Go, page 221
    2 more examples

    A friendly duo, Sharon Ruston and James Kidd, ushered me into the distinctively Withnailesque student community in Liverpool, as well as the rudiments of the art of surviving in a crowded room where everyone's smoking, chatting, chanting and drinking (often simultaneously) […]

    2003, Rocco Coronato, Jonson Versus Bakhtin: Carnival and the Grotesque, page viii

    Filled with sharp Cymric wit, Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics is not just an extremely funny book, but a quintessential chronicle of seventies rock that is soon to be immortalised as a feature film. Leonard effortlessly conjures up dozens of Withnailesque anecdotes […]

    2008, Stephen E. Andrews, Duncan Bowis, 100 Must-read Books for Men, page 86

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

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

MLA

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

Chicago

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

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