[f. VICTORIA2.]
A. adj. Of or belonging to, designating or typical of the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901).
1867. Chicago Evening Post, 16 April, 3/2. They are bucks with a smack rather of the Regency than of the Victorian era.
1875. Stedman, Vict. Poets, i. 6. The significant likeness between the Alexandrian and Victorian eras.
1880. C. H. Pearson, in Victorian Rev., I. 544. The changes … were more radical than any programme of Victorian Liberalism suggests.
1897. Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 591. An old-fashioned petticoat such as an early Victorian-age lady would have worn.
1907. Miss F. F. Montrésor, Burning Torch, 426. The furniture was less modern and uglier (it was adorned in a heavy Early Victorian style).
B. sb. 1. A person, esp. an author, who lived in the reign of Queen Victoria.
1876. N. Amer. Rev., CXXIII. 219. We can scarcely avoid calling him [Browning] the strongest, truest poet of the Victorians.
1886. F. Harrison, Choice Bks., iii. 61. He [Tennyson], alone of the Victorians, has definitely entered the immortal group of our English poets.
2. An article of furniture from the time of Queen Victoria.
1905. Elin. Glyn, Viciss. Evangeline, 189. I shall have the suite … done up with pale green, and burn all the Early Victorians.
Hence Victorianism; Victorianize v.
1859. The Age, 24 May, 5/4. It is levelled against all mis-government whether by Conservatives or Radicals, and is an endeavor to arouse a feeling of Victorianism, a sense of the duty we all owe to our adopted country, in order to save her from the corrupt practices of weak and wicked politicians.
1905. Westm. Gaz., 2 Feb., 4/2. The turban … is, of course, an early Victorianism.
1905. Speaker, 8 April, 32/2. They Victorianise his [Bunyan’s] spelling and parade his Calvinism on shiny paper.
