Veblenian

[ ve-blee-nee-uhn ]

noun

1. Also called Veb·len·ite [veb, -l, uh, -nahyt]. a person who adheres to the economic or sociological theories of Thorstein Veblen.

adjective

1. of, relating to, or suggesting the theories of Thorstein Veblen.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Veblenian¹

Veblen + -ian

Example Sentences

Our new Gilded Age is even more Veblenian than the last.

From The Guardian

Of course, big cities are still places of conspicuous consumption in the old-fashioned Veblenian sense, but they have other attributes as well.

From New York Times

Some Veblenian titles, The Engineers and the Price System, The Theory of Business Enterprise, The Theory of the Leisure Class, will recall to the initiated that Thorstein Veblen was the mental sire of many a U.S. intellectual who grew up to be a technocrat.

From Time Magazine Archive

Such Veblenian phrases as "conspicuous waste" became famed.

From Time Magazine Archive

So did the Veblenian style, which H. L. Mencken compared to "a constant roll of subway expresses," which Veblen himself parodied in such passages as: "If we are getting restless under the taxonomy of a monocotyledonous wage doctrine and a cryptogamic theory of interest, with involute, loculicidal, tomentous, and moniliform variants, what is the cytoplasm, centrosome, or karyokinetic process to which we may turn, and in which we may find surcease from the metaphysics of normality and controlling principles?"

From Time Magazine Archive