Lynchian

English

Etymology

From Lynch +‎ -ian.

Adjective

Lynchian (comparative more Lynchian, superlative most Lynchian)

1. Of or pertaining to David Keith Lynch (born 1946), American filmmaker and director whose surrealist films are characterized by dream imagery and meticulous sound design.
   • 1997, David Foster Wallace, “David Lynch keeps his head”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Kindle edition, Little, Brown Book Group:

     But like postmodern or pornographic, Lynchian is one of those Potter Stewart-type words that’s definable only ostensively—i.e. we know it when we see it. Ted Bundy wasn’t particularly Lynchian, but good old Jeffrey Dahmer, with his victim’s various anatomies neatly separated and stored in his fridge alongside his chocolate milk and Shedd Spread, was thoroughgoingly Lynchian.

   • 1997, David Foster Wallace, “David Lynch keeps his head”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Little, Brown Book Group:

     Lynchian "refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter."

   • 2006, Slavoj Žižek, The Pervert's Guide to Cinema:

     My relationship towards tulips is inherently Lynchian. I think they are disgusting. Just imagine. Aren't these some kind of, how do you call it, vagina dentata, dental vaginas threatening to swallow you?

Translations

of or pertaining to David Lynch

• Polish: Lynczowski
• Russian: линчевский (ru) (linčevskij)