Dictionary

Harry Potterish en · ADJ

Etymology

From Harry Potter + -ish. Piecewise doublet of Harry Potteresque.

Meanings

1. Resembling or characteristic of the Harry Potter series.
   • In Not Just a Witch, Heckie has just finished Witches’ School where all the witches learn how to make the world a better place. Sound a bit Harry Potterish? It is, but it came before the J.K. Rowling adventures began. 2003 January, DMag, number 11, page 86:
   • I had no idea what was going on until I heard one of my roommates ordering my other roommate back into her room to change into something that was more “Harry Potterish.” Somehow, I managed to tear myself away from my Middle East Politics paper to discover the two of them uncontrollably hyper and wearing head-to-toe gold and burgundy. The new Harry Potter movie was opening at midnight, and they had picked up tickets a week in advance. 2005 December 8, Brooke Nevils, “Brining Potter’s lessons to campus”, in The Johns Hopkins University News-Letter, volume CX, number 13, the students of The Johns Hopkins University, page B4, column 1:
   • Pitch it right to the children, and ‘Taking a walk through a graveyard’ takes on a Harry Potterish aura, and Ireland offers you plenty of chances to do just that. 2008, Terry Marsh, Frommer’s Ireland with your Family: From Vibrant Towns to Picnic Perfect Countryside, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 5, column 1:
   • Last summer interest in U.K. Garage reached Harry Potterish levels in Britain (David’s debut CD alone went six times platinum); […] 2001 April 30, Christopher John Farley, “The Garage Door Opens”, in Time:
   • Tegmark’s story sounds a bit like something I read in one of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. In fact, much of what you’re about to read concerning the multiverse will seem a bit Harry Potterish. You will find it stretching your imagination. A few of the multiverse concepts described in this book are perhaps as fictitious as the Harry Potter series, […] This little apparent loophole in energy conservation provides a strange, Harry Potterish avenue to an understanding of the forces of nature via a theoretical framework known as quantum field theory. 2011, Steven Manly, Visions of the Multiverse, Pompton Plains, N.J.: New Page Books, →ISBN, pages 21–22 and 93:
   • The only thing that keeps me from sheer madness is that Mr. Specter looks like a wizard. He has a severe comb-over of thin, dyed red hair and long yellow teeth. I’d love to leap up, stick my pencil out like a wand and yell something Harry Potterish, like, “Expelliderus!” 2010, Mary Hanlon Stone, Invisible Girl, Philomel Books, →ISBN, page 193:
   • A visit to any favourite legal drinking den, El Vino’s, say, in Blackfriars, Daly’s Wine Bar on the Strand, or Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese beside Gough Square, confirms immediately the peculiar Harry Potterish sociality of the Bar – its abiding clubbishness which confirms belonging while also asserting exclusion. 2006, Hywel Williams, Britain’s Power Elites: The Rebirth of a Ruling Class, London: Constable, →ISBN, page 130:
   • As it was the platform number for the Ardrossan train was given as 11A. That sounded a little Harry Potterish to me but there really was such a platform. I have to report that it was far from magical. 2011, Craig Stevenson, John Mackay, The Cheap Way Round, East Kilbride: Cheapwayround Publishers, →ISBN, page 78:
   • I, of course, did not tell Kenneth what I’d done – burning his letter at a wayside shrine – because in some Harry Potterish way he could have made a counter curse to that, too. 2007, Marianne Faithfull, Memories, Dreams & Reflections, London: Fourth Estate, →ISBN, page 53:
   • “Do not name him. He knows when his name is spoken and seeks out the speaker.” Jack had heard this before. It struck him as Harry Potterish, but he respected the sources and so he abided. 2006, Francis Paul Wilson, Harbingers, New York, N.Y.: Forge, →ISBN, page 81:
   • MapQuest displays it in a place where I’m sure no street exists. The Harry Potterish mystery has a boring resolution; an apartment building called Sheldon Court sits where, presumably, a cul de sac of that name once existed. 2010 September 20, David Guaspari, “Republicans in Ithaca”, in The Weekly Standard, volume 16, number 1, page 19, column 2:
   • It was where the Glomerels studied Glomery – no, I’m not making this up but it does sound Harry Potterish (or the other way round) – which was a corruption of grammarye or Latin grammar. 2006, Benedict le Vay, Eccentric Cambridge: The Bradt City Guide, Bradt Travel Guides; The Globe Pequot Press, →ISBN, page 116:
   • He hoped that the rumour about the Canadian school with neckties was true. How bad could that be? It sounded kind of Harry Potterish. 2005, Kathrine K[ristine] Beck, Snitch, Scholastic Children’s Books, →ISBN, pages 87–88:
   • Buildings date back to 1924 (when they were home to the local senior girls school) consequently there is lots of wood-panelling (slightly Harry Potterish feel to some of it) but, more importantly, lots of dedicated space. 2010, The Good Schools Guide, 15th edition, Lucas Publications, →ISBN, pages 1501–1502:
   • On the one hand this attention has brought the promise of extra funding - though few at the Universities UK annual conference in the Harry Potterish surroundings of Keble College, Oxford believe that undergraduate fees of up to £3,000 a year from 2006 are the magic wand to solve their problems. 2004 September 15, “Conference call”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 16 Sep 2014:
   • ‘[…] Oh, you could be something Harry Potterish.’ ‘Or maybe . . . Yes! If I could find the gear, I could go as a character from that book I’ve been reading to them.[…]’ 2002, Judith Cutler, Hidden Power, Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 204:
   • There is something rather Harry Potterish about them: they can suddenly appear in huge quantities or alternatively disappear. […] Remember that receptors are Harry Potterish, appearing and disappearing. 2005, Vivienne Parry, The Truth About Hormones, London: Atlantic Books, →ISBN, pages 12 and 55:
   • All this is to say that the night after the dinner party from hell, I had a redemptive, Harry Potterish sort of dream. 2004, Patricia J. Williams, Open House: Of Family, Friends, Food, Piano Lessons and the Search for a Room of My Own, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 11:
   • I flung out one hand at them. I didn’t have time to think of catchy phrases. No Die Hardish Yippee ki yay motherfuckers or Harry Potterish wand waving Or Bewitched inspired nose twitches. 2009, Leigh Bridger, Soul Catcher, Bell Bridge Books, →ISBN, page 100:
   • I looked up to find an arc of almost-teens around me in Harry Potterish garb. A couple of adults appeared, in robes, pointed hats, and affected accents, beckoning the children to follow closely through this “dangerous” space. 2007 August 9–15, “The war on fun: “Family-friendly” is really a code word for “adult-hostile””, in See Magazine, number 715, page 7, column 3:
   • This time, my mind stayed centered in my body, getting off on the scents in the air, the mysterious, mystical copse of Harry Potterish pines in the middle of the hike, and the curious looks on the faces bf the cows. 2004, Jessica Porter, The Hip Chick’s Guide to Macrobiotics: A Philosophy for Achieving a Radiant Mind and Fabulous Body, New York, N.Y.: Avery, →ISBN, page 55:
   • At least one critic has complained that this is a Harry Potterish portrayal of Death, and I must admit that from time to time I found myself wishing this Death had a bit more edge. 2011, Steve Rasnic Tem, “Death and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak”, in Danel Olson, editor, 21st-Century Gothic: Great Gothic Novels since 2000, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., →ISBN, page 45:
2. Resembling or characteristic of the fictional character Harry Potter.
   • His dark brown hair was all over the shop, sticking out in tufts, and his spectacles were Harry Potterish. 2003, Jill Mansell, Falling for You, Headline Review, →ISBN, page 80:
   • It was him, only more so. The curls were wilder and darker. The glasses were not as Harry Potterish. 2011, Angie Smibert, Memento Nora, Marshall Cavendish, →ISBN, page 28:
   • He was tall, reed-thin in a heavy coat, and absurdly Harry Potterish with round glasses and an owlish gaze. 2009, Noel Hynd, Countdown in Cairo (The Russian Trilogy; 3), Zondervan, →ISBN, page 365:
   • Tina points to a Harry Potterish lightning bolt on her chin. 2006, Mary Hogan, Susanna Sees Stars, Delacorte Press, published 2007, →ISBN, page 199:
   • He was maybe a fifth- or sixth-grader. Kind of early Harry Potterish. Short and skinny. Glasses. Short, dark hair that cowlicked in the back. 2010, Susan Fletcher, Ancient, Strange, and Lovely (The Dragon Chronicles), Atheneum Books for Young Readers, →ISBN, page 181:
   • The core Tangent group would be joined for the next four nights by the visiting crew from Jo’burg: […] Juan the make-up man, surprisingly (and disappointingly, for Guy at least, as he was tall and rather gorgeous in a Harry Potterish way) straight. 2009, Tarras Wilding, Leopard Rock, Little Black Dress, →ISBN, page 115:
   • That bespectacled, Harry Potterish face, frowning earnestly at the assorted jumble of Ben’s computer, stirred the soppiest memories in my breast of the days when my son had himself been just such a pink-cheeked cherub. 2002, Kate Fenton, Picking Up, Flame, →ISBN, page 104:
   • I know about projectile vomiting because L—one of my brothers, the Harry Potterish one—had it when he was a baby. 2004, Nicola Morgan, Chicken Friend, Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press, published 2005, →ISBN, page 40:
   • These were round, Harry Potterish, horn-rimmed glasses of zero prescription which increasingly strengthened as you pumped a clear gel solution attached to the frame inside the glass. 2007, Robert D[avid] Kaplan, Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN, page 307:

Forms

Synonyms

Harry Potteresque · Potteresque