Brobdingnagian (pronounced brob-ding-nag-ee-uhn)
(1) Of huge size; gigantic; tremendous.
(2) Larger than typical or expected.
(3) In medicine (psychiatry & clinical ophthalmology),
as the noun “brobdingnagian vision”, a hallucination or visual disorder in
which objects appear larger or nearer than they are (macropsia). The companion (antonym) condition is “lilliputian
vision”, a hallucination or visual disorder in which objects appear smaller or
more distant than they are (micropsia).
(4) In mycology, of the brobdingnagia, a genus of fungi
in the family Phyllachoraceae.
(5) Of or pertaining to the fictional land of Brobdingnag.
(5) An inhabitant or native of the fictional land of Brobdingnag.
1728 (in more frequent use by mid-century): An adjective to
convey the sense of “enormous in size, huge, immense, gigantic etc, derived
from the noun Brobdingnag (the land of the giants) the second of the exotic
lands visited by the protagonist Lemuel Gulliver in Gulliver’s Travels (1726 and titled Travels into several remote nations of the world for the first
edition), written in the style of contemporary “travel guides” by the Anglo-Irish
author & satirist Jonathan Swift (1667–1745). The construct was Brobdingnag + -ian. The suffix -ian was a euphonic variant of –an
& -n, from the Middle English -an, (regularly -ain, -ein & -en), from
the Old French –ain & -ein (or before i, -en), the Modern French forms
being –ain & -en (feminine -aine, -enne), from the Latin -iānus (the alternative forms were -ānus, -ēnus, -īnus & -ūnus), which formed adjectives of belonging or origin
from a noun, being -nus (cognate with the Ancient Greek -νος (-nos)), preceded
by a vowel, from the primitive Indo-European -nós. It was cognate with the English -en. Brobdingnagian is a noun
& adjective; the noun plural is Brobdingnagians (initial upper case if used
of the inhabitants or natives of the fictional land of Brobdingnag but not for
other purposes (such as untypically large cosmic objects)). To distinguish between big stuff, the comparative
is “more brobdingnagian” and the superlative “most brobdingnagian”.
In constructing the name Brobdingnag for his fictional
land of giants, Swift used a technique more subtle than some authors who use
more obvious charactonyms. In
literature, a charactonym is a name given to a character that suggests
something about their personality, behavior, or role in the story; these names almost
always have some literal or symbolic meaning aligning with or hinting at the
character’s traits and examples include:
Alfred Doolittle (lazy and opportunistic) in George
Bernard Shaw’s (GBS; 1856-1950) Pygmalion
(1913).
Miss Honey (sweet & gentle) in Roald Dahl’s
(1916–1990) Matilda (1988) and Veruca
Salt (harsh and unpleasant) in his Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory (1964).
Mr Bumble (noted for his bumbling inept incompetence) in Charles
Dickens’ (1812–1870) Oliver Twist
(1837).
Willy Loman (of low social status and beset with feelings
of inadequacy) in Arthur Miller’s (1915–2005) Death of a Salesman (1949).
The use of blatant charactonyms is not always an example
of linguistic brutishness and it’s often used in children's literarure or when
it’s demanded by the rhythm of text or plat.
There are also “reverse charactonyms” when the traits of a characteristic
become famously (or infamously) emblematic of something such as Shylock in William
Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) The Merchant of
Venice (1598) or Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens A Christmas Carol (1843).
As well as the meanings of words, Swift liked to use the sounds of language in fashioning fictional names which were both plausible and in some way suggestive of the association he wanted to summon. Structurally, what he appears to have done is combine arbitrary syllables to create a word sounding foreign and exotic while still being pronounceable by the English-speaking audience for which he wrote; the technique is harder to master than it sounds although with modern generative AI, presumably it’s become easier. As a literary trick, Brobdingnag works because of the elements in the construction (1) the multisyllabic length and (2) the use of “harsh” consonants (notably the “b” & “g” which lend a sense of bulk and largeness, appropriate for the “land of the giants”. The other exotic land in Gulliver’s Travels was Lilliput, the place where the people are tiny. Just as he intended Brobdingnag to invoke thoughts of something (or someone) clumsy and heavy, Lilliput and Lilliputian were meant to suggest “small, delicate”.
Although since Swift, the adjective brobdingnagian has never gone away, it’s length and “unnatural” (for English) spelling has meant it’s only ever been a “niche” word”, used as a literary device and astronomers like it when writing of stars, galaxies, black holes and such which are of such dimensions that miles or kilometres are not c convenient measure, demanding instead terms like “light years” (the distance in which light travels in one Earth year” or “parsecs” (a unit of astronomical length, based on the distance from Earth at which a star would have a parallax of one second of arc which is equivalent to 206,265 times the distance from the earth to the sun or 3.26 light-years. Its lineal equivalent is about 19.1 trillion miles (30.8 trillion km)).
The king of Brobdingnag and Gulliver, cartoon by James Gillray (1756-1815), published in London 10 February 1804 during the era of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). British Cartoon Prints Collection, Library of Congress, Washington DC.
The work depicts the king of Brobdingnag (George III
(1738–1820; King of Great Britain and Ireland 1760-1820)) staring intently at a
tank in which is sailing Gulliver (Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the
French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 &
1815). Lord Salisbury (1748–1823) stands
behind the king. It was a time when
Napoleon was planning to invade England, his Grande Armée transported in “flat-bottomed boats” which were a sort
of early landing craft, a design which would emerge in specialized forks for
various purposes (troops, tanks etc) during World War II (1939-1945). It wasn’t until the Royal Navy prevailed in
the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) that the threat of invasion was ended. At the time of the cartoon’s publication,
George III had for some years already been displaying signs of mental
instability (thought now to be consistent with bipolar disorder (the old manic
depression)) although it would be almost a decade before his condition deteriorated
to such an extent a regent was appointed.
Brobdingnagian’s more familiar role is in literature
where it depends for effect on rarity; twice in the one book is one too many Tellingly (and unsurprisingly given the
inherent clumsiness), it’s rare in poetry although some have made the effort,
possibly just to prove it can be done, one anonymous poet leaving us The Awful Fate of Mr. Foster, believed
to be a parody of the poetic style of William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) “Brobdingnagian”
interpolated possibly because Thackeray was wrote some acerbic critiques of
Swift’s work:
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