Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1921, from Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), British-born silent movie star. The surname is attested from c.1200, from Old French chapelain "priest."
Usage examples of "chaplinesque".
Then it whipped about, and moving in the ludicrous yet oh-so-efficient Chaplinesque paddling run of its species, it scuttled off into the shadows, leaving me to seek another solution to my misfortunes.
Years later, when Joy recalls this Chaplinesque scene, her laughter is still close to hysterical.
His arm was around Helen Troy, who was otherwise virtually extinguished by her Chaplinesque black hat, but still indubitably a star.
As they watched themselves in the mirror, Sabina began undressing and Tomas transferred the hat, now a Chaplinesque madcap, to her head.
Her companion, with a stylized jerkiness that's appropriately Chaplinesque in nature, brings his left foot way up behind him and boots her lightly in the rear, an act so neatly conceived it makes her laugh in mid-yawn.
The portraits in the book are indelibly etched in our minds: Ruth's hardworking, laughing father whose Chaplinesque humor and skill at mime carried the family through its darkest, most impoverished times.