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Voltairean, Voltairian, n. and a.|vɒlˈtɛərɪən|
[f. the later name of the French author François Marie Arouet (1694–1778), who from 1718 styled himself de Voltaire.]
A. n. A follower or adherent of Voltaire in respect of opinions or the manner of expressing them; one whose views on social and religious questions are characterized by a critical and mocking scepticism.
α1871Morley Condorcet in Crit. Misc. Ser. i. (1878) 51 He [Condorcet] was a Voltairean in the intensity of his antipathies to the Church. 1885Athenæum 2 May 567/1 His father, a country squire, and, as the fashion then was, a thorough-going Voltairean, had married one of his own serfs.
β1842J. S. Mill Let. 10 Jan. in Wks. (1963) XIII. 497 We are all either bigots or Voltairians. 1875Gladstone Glean. (1879) VI. 225 We are now engaged in training a nation to consist of Voltairians and of Clericals. 1883M. Pattison Mem. (1885) 212 If it is against the Church it is a fiction of the Voltairians.
B. adj. Of, belonging to, or resembling Voltaire; holding opinions like those of Voltaire, or expressing them in his style.
α1846Bp. of Meath in J. O'Connor Hist. Ireland 1798–1924 (1925) I. viii. 249 Voltairean newspapers. 1879Morley Burke viii. 176 The eager, bustling, shrill-tongued crowd of the Voltairean age. 1885‘Mrs. Alexander’ At Bay i, A shrewd, worldly, voltairean woman.
β1833J. S. Mill Lett. (1910) I. 75 The little feuilles which one buys as one goes into a theatre, are the representatives of the Voltairian philosophy at present. 1876L. Stephen Hours in Library 189 Walpole must be reckoned as belonging both in his faults and his merits to the Voltairian school of literature. 1896W. K. Leask H. Miller v. 125 There is still the Voltairian type of thinker.
Hence Volˈtairianism (also -ean-), = Voltairism.
1848W. K. Kelly tr. L. Blanc's Hist. Ten Y. II. 187 In order not to offend the Voltairianism of several of his friends, he had forborne to base his constitution on religion. 1890Athenæum 19 July 92/2 He interprets Voltairianism as ‘a school based on destructive irony,..and incapable of raising or fortifying the human mind’. 1901Q. Rev. CXCIV. 599 Sir Henry Craik pounces with perhaps unnecessary severity upon the flippant Voltaireanism, the dapper self-assurance, and the ‘slovenly omniscience’ of Jeffrey and his allies. 1942Scrutiny X. 400 Dostoyevsky's denunciation of the deracinated nobility who despised their own language and national character and lived in a froth of Voltaireanism and French bons mots. |