Definition
View the full definition in the Macmillan Dictionary.
Origin and usage
The adjective Rooseveltian is formed from Roosevelt, the surname of two US presidents, and the suffix -ian. It was first used in the late 19th century in reference to Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President and in the 1930s in reference to Franklin Delano, the 32nd to hold that office.
Examples
Usage of the term Rooseveltian will inevitably show a spike in late June and early July after the term was used by the UK Prime Minister to refer to his goverment’s spending plans, aimed at boosting the economy after the shock of coronavirus. The Roosevelt he was referring to was Franklin Delano, whose New Deal in the 1930s involved huge spending on public works in order to aid recovery following the Great Depression. Rooseveltian is a rather rare word; there are a mere 140 instances in the corpus used to compile Macmillan Dictionary. It follows the pattern of other words relating to the ideas and policies of politicians, such as Churchillian. Rooseveltian is a recent submission to our Open Dictionary. You can submit words and expressions that are not already in the dictionary here.
Quotations
“My social conscience comes from my parents’ Rooseveltian New Deal beliefs, enhanced by my Baptist youth.”
(enTenTen15 corpus)
“The tough-minded, Rooseveltian view of nature as a competitive hierarchy was intimately connected with nineteenth-century European imperialism.”
(enTenTen15 corpus)
Related words
Churchillian, Thatcherism, interventionism
