Proustian

adjective

Proust·​ian ˈprü-stē-ən 

: of, relating to, suggestive of, or associated with Marcel Proust or his writings: such as

a

: marked by a complex, highly detailed style

In spite of its Proustian sentences and its surrealist feints, Krasznahorkai's novel is in fact a rather elementary tale.

—Robert Boyers

… as she described the mid-20th-century Schenectady city-parks tennis scene in Proustian detail, the hours flew by like anvils.

—Charles Leerhsen

b

: relating to or evoking the recall of a forgotten memory

… there is something Proustian about the tea sandwich. For some people, it evokes warm memories of church socials, showers, Mom's bridge-club luncheons, and similar white-glove occasions.

—Evelyn Battaglia

… Terry had already started a fire using several cords of dried hickory, whose smell can induce Proustian reveries in southerners everywhere.

—Pat Conroy

Examples of Proustian in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

This mission, for a few minutes at least, is Miles’s Proustian madeleine. — Sophie Brookover, Vulture, 15 May 2026

These sights have come to inspire a Pavlovian response from generations of children, and — no less powerfully — a Proustian one from their parents. — David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 1 May 2026

My Proustian madeleine is a sandwich comprised of walnut butter, cream cheese, and Medjool date jam slathered on thick slices of black bread. — Literary Hub, 13 Mar. 2026

My Proustian trigger was a portable gramophone designed by Mario Bellini for the Italian company Minerva. — Justin Davidson, Curbed, 26 Feb. 2026

That quotation alludes to the many Proustian echoes in Bowen’s story set in an aristocratic Big House during the 1919-21 War of Independence. — Literary Hub, 2 Feb. 2026

The blips are short, ribbonlike lyrics, trimmed to the moment, their sharp enjambments inspired by the Renaissance-era poet Robert Herrick; the loop-the-loops follow long Proustian arcs in margin-busting lines reminiscent of Walt Whitman. — Dan Chiasson, New Yorker, 4 Aug. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1923, in the meaning defined above