Pantagruel

American  

[pan-tag-roo-el, -uhl, pan-tuh-groo-uhl, pahn-ta-gry-el] / pænˈtæg ruˌɛl, -əl, ˌpæn təˈgru əl, pɑ̃ ta grüˈɛl /

noun

1. (in Rabelais'Pantagruel ) the huge son of Gargantua, represented as dealing with serious matters in a spirit of broad and somewhat cynical good humor.

2. (italics) a satirical novel (1532) by Rabelais.

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Pantagruel British  

/ pænˈtæɡruːɛl /

noun

1. a gigantic prince, noted for his ironical buffoonery, in Rabelais' satire Gargantua and Pantagruel (1534)

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Other Word Forms

• Pantagruelian adjective
• Pantagruelically adverb
• Pantagruelism noun
• Pantagruelist noun

Example Sentences

One year, my family gave me the entire Penguin Classics library and some of it is rough sledding, like “Gargantua and Pantagruel.”

From New York Times

It will immortalize its author with the same certainty that “Gargantua and Pantagruel” immortalized Rabelais, and “The Brothers Karamazov” Dostoyevsky.

From New York Times

All these initial chapters of “Monkey King” exhibit a rollicking exuberance, somewhat like Rabelais’s hyperbolic accounts of the giants Gargantua and Pantagruel.

From Washington Post

It certainly came well after Renaissance writer François Rabelais – who revelled in Lyon’s culinary traditions, depicting the tawdry delights of offal and cheap cuts in Gargantua and Pantagruel.

From The Guardian

In Rabelais’s great 16th-century story “Gargantua & Pantagruel,” the giant Gargantua spends his childhood playing: “He was always rolling in the mud, dirtying his nose, scratching his face, and treading down his shoes; and often he gaped after flies, or ran joyfully after the butterflies.”

From Washington Post