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• Ian
  Ian

  noun

  a male given name, Scottish form of John.
• -ian
  -ian

  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

¹ American  

[ee-uhn, ee-ahn, ahy-uhn] / ˈi ən, ˈi ɑn, ˈaɪ ən /

noun

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

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-ian ² American  

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 .

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-ian British  

suffix

1. a variant of -an

   Etonian

   Johnsonian

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Etymology

Origin of -ian

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

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Ian -ian

He battled Rays reliever Ian Seymour for eight pitches, fouling off a collection of well-placed fastballs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2026

California hasn’t expressed an interest in joining the lawsuit, as my colleague Ian James has reported.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026

Ian: What sticks out to you about the clip?

From Slate ● Oct. 19, 2026

An 80-year-old man who died in a light aircraft crash is understood to be flying instructor Ian Haggis.

From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2026

I watched Celia the whole time as Evan made her sweep the gym floor by herself and Ian made her put new bags in all the trash cans.

From "Made You Up" by Francesca Zappia

The adjectivally ennobled: the ones whose names sprout "-esque" and "-ian".

From The Guardian ● Jan. 15, 2013

Note.—These verbs have no trace of original umlaut, since their -ian was once -ōjan.

From Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary by C. Alphonso (Charles Alphonso) Smith

Distinction is to be made, therefore, only between Classes II and I. Class II contains the verbs with infinitive in -ian not preceded by r.

From Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary by C. Alphonso (Charles Alphonso) Smith

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