Dictionary

Kafkaesque en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˌkæfkəˈʔɛsk/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˌkɑfkəˈʔɛsk/ (General-American)
• /ˌkɑfkəˈɛsk/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˌkæfkəˈɛsk/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˌkæfkəˈɛsk/ (General-American)
• /ˌkæfkəˈʔɛsk/ (General-American)
• (US) audio
• /ˌkæfkəˈɹɛsk/ (Received-Pronunciation) intrusive R

Etymology

Etymology tree English Kafka Proto-Indo-European *-iskos Proto-Germanic *-iskaz Proto-West Germanic *-iskbor. Vulgar Latin -iscus Italian -escobor. French -esquebor. English -esque English Kafkaesque From Kafka + -esque, after writer Franz Kafka. Piecewise doublet of Kafkaish.

Meanings

1. Marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity.
   • In the end, Jesus is not only a Kafkaesque, lonely, holy man, abandoned in his death and despised by his own people, but his teaching is not even considered to be like that of the Jewish Sages. 2001, David Flusser, Jesus (3d ed; Jerusalem: Magnes), →ISBN, page 250:
   • Imagine a city like Los Angeles disappearing from the map completely. That's exactly what happened to Chaohu, a city in eastern China's Anhui province with a similar population — about 4 million. The people have remained, but the city has vanished in an administrative sleight of hand. That was the Kafkaesque reality for Chaohu's inhabitants, who went to bed one night and woke up the morning of Aug. 22 to find out that their city no longer existed. For many, their first inkling that something had changed was from the local news. 2011 September 21, Louisa Lim, “The Curious Case Of The Vanishing Chinese City”, in NPR, archived from the original on 21 Sep 2011, Asia:
   • Kafkaesque bureaucracies
   • The world is increasingly becoming a Single Central Europe with its Kafkaesque anonymity, Musilesque human-traits-free individuality, or the divided individual without individuality and indivisibility, Orwellesque Newspeak and total control, if not manufacturing, of history. 2011, L. Donskis, Modernity in Crisis: A Dialogue on the Culture of Belonging:
2. Marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of looming danger.
3. In the manner of something written by Franz Kafka.

Forms

Deriveds

Kafkaesqueness · Kafkaesquely · unKafkaesque

Relateds

Lynchian · Orwellian · Dickensian · Kafkatrap · Kafkaian · Kafkian

Translations (31)

de kafkaesk (marked by menacing complexity) · ko 카프카적이다 (marked by menacing complexity) · fa کافکاطور (marked by menacing complexity) · nl kafkaësk (marked by menacing complexity) · fa کافکاوار (marked by menacing complexity) · ca kafkià (marked by menacing complexity) · ru кафкиа́нский (marked by menacing complexity) · no kafkask (marked by menacing complexity) · fi kafkamainen (marked by menacing complexity) · hi काफ़कएस्क (marked by menacing complexity) · af kafkaagtig (marked by menacing complexity) · es kafkiano (marked by menacing complexity) · el καφκικός (marked by menacing complexity) · lt kafkiškas (marked by menacing complexity) · mk кафкијански (marked by menacing complexity) · sh kafkijanski (marked by menacing complexity) · ar كافايكي (marked by menacing complexity) · it kafkiano (marked by menacing complexity) · ja カフカ的 (marked by menacing complexity) · pl kafkowski (marked by menacing complexity) · et kafkalik (marked by menacing complexity) · fr kafkaïen (marked by menacing complexity) · da kafkask (marked by menacing complexity) · pt kafkiano (marked by menacing complexity) · cs kafkovský (marked by menacing complexity) · nl kafkaiaans (marked by menacing complexity) · sv Kafkaartad (marked by menacing complexity) · he קפקאי (marked by menacing complexity) · gl kafkiano (marked by menacing complexity) · af kafkaesk (marked by menacing complexity) · sv kafkaartad (marked by menacing complexity)