Rabelaisian

• Rabelaisan

Calque of French rabelaisien.

Rabelaisian (comparative more Rabelaisian, superlative most Rabelaisian)

1. Pertaining to the works or period of Rabelais.
   • 2006, Todd P. Olson, “The Street Has Its Masters: Caravaggio and the Socially Maerginal”, in Genevieve Warwick, editor, Caravaggio: Realism, Rebellion, Reception, page 72:

     In Italy, as in Rabelaisian France, the carnival entered not only elite theatrical performance and engravings but also the printed word.

2. Possessing a style of satirical humour characterized by exaggerated or grotesque characters and coarse jokes.
   • 1889, William George Aston, A History of Japanese Literature, Book VI, chapter VII, page 343:

     For although of unexceptionable morality, and addressed virginibus puerisque, the stories and illustrations with which this and others of these collections abound are frequently of a very Rabelaisian character.

   • 1945 January and February, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—III”, in Railway Magazine, page 13:

     The smiths themselves were a grand lot of fellows, full of a robust, and sometimes Rabelaisian sense of humour, and between "heats," they could be most entertaining.