Kafkaesque

Definition

Marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity.

Etymology

From Kafka + -esque, after writer Franz Kafka. Piecewise doublet of Kafkaish.

Example Sentences

• "Kafkaesque bureaucracies"
• "In the end, Jesus is not only a Kafkaesque, lonely, holy man, abandoned in his death and despised by his own people, but his teaching is not even considered to be like that of the Jewish Sages."
• "The world is increasingly becoming a Single Central Europe with its Kafkaesque anonymity, Musilesque human-traits-free individuality, or the divided individual without individuality and indivisibility, Orwellesque Newspeak and total control, if not manufacturing, of history."