Ian

¹

[ ee-uhn, ee-ahn, ahy-uhn ]

noun

1. a male given name, Scottish form of John.

-ian

²

1. a suffix with the same meaning and properties as -an, though -ian is now the more productive of the two suffixes in recent coinages, especially when the base noun ends in a consonant: Orwellian; Washingtonian .

-ian

suffix

1. a variant of -an

   Johnsonian

   Etonian

Word History and Origins

Origin of Ian¹

Extracted from Latin loanwords in which -ānus (adjective suffix) is joined to stems ending in i; -an

Word History and Origins

Origin of Ian¹

from Latin -iānus