goblinish

comparative more goblinish · superlative most goblinish

1. Resembling or characteristic of a goblin.

   […] the phrase ‘grotesque’ is a misleading description of ugliness in art. It does not follow that either the Chinese dragons or the Gothic gargoyles or the goblinish old women of Rembrandt were in the least intended to be comic.

   1902, G. K. Chesterton, “A Defence of Ugly Things”, in The Defendant, London: E. Brimley Johnson, page 87

   1 more example

   […] the castellated towers of laurel in the middle of the garden, the gigantic warrior that stood on one side of the gateway, and the lion that guarded the other, were sprouted into such fantastic shapes as resembled nothing either in heaven or earth, or in the waters under the earth; but, to my young imagination, they presented all of them a goblinish appearance, that harmonized well with the ghostly legions and dark traditions our old nurse had told us respecting the haunted hall and its departed occupants.

   1848, Anne Brontë, chapter 2, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, volume 1, London: T. C. Newby, pages 32–33

   Synonyms: goblinesque, goblinlike