different between gaudy vs baroque

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /????.di/
• (US) IPA^(key): /???.di/
  • (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /???.di/
• Rhymes: -??di

Etymology 1

Origin uncertain; perhaps from gaud (“ornament, trinket”) +? -y, perhaps ultimately from Old French gaudir (“to rejoice”).

Alternatively, from Middle English gaudi, gawdy (“yellowish”), from Old French gaude, galde (“weld (the plant)”), from Frankish *walda, from Proto-Germanic *walþ?, *walþij?, akin to Old English *weald, *wielde (>Middle English welde, wolde and Anglo-Latin walda (“alum”)), Middle Low German wolde, Middle Dutch woude. More at English weld.

A common claim that the word derives from Antoni Gaudí, designer of Barcelona's Sagrada Família Basilica, is incorrect: the word was in use centuries before Gaudí was born.

Adjective

gaudy (comparative gaudier, superlative gaudiest)

1. very showy or ornamented, now especially when excessive, or in a tasteless or vulgar manner

   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

     The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of its proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.

   • 2005, Thomas Hauser & Marilyn Cole Lownes, "How Bling-bling Took Over the Ring", The Observer, 9 January 2005

     Gaudy jewellery might offend some people's sense of style. But former heavyweight champion and grilling-machine entrepreneur George Foreman is philosophical about today's craze for bling-bling.

2. (obsolete) fun; merry; festive

   • And for my strange petition I will make
     Amends hereafter by some gaudy day

   • And then, there he was, slim and handsome, and dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw...

Synonyms

• (excessively showy): tawdry, flashy, garish, kitschy
• Thesaurus:gaudy

Derived terms

• gaudily
• gaudy night

Translations

Noun

gaudy (plural gaudies)

1. One of the large beads in the rosary at which the paternoster is recited.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gower to this entry?)

Etymology 2

Latin gaudium (“joy”). Doublet of joy.

Noun

gaudy (plural gaudies)

1. A reunion held by one of the colleges of the University of Oxford for alumni, normally held during the summer vacations.

English

Etymology

Via French baroque (which originally meant a pearl of irregular shape), from Portuguese barroco (“irregular pearl”); related to Spanish barrueco and Italian barocco, of uncertain ultimate origin, but possibly from Latin verr?ca (“wart”). It has been suggested that the term derives from Baroco, a technical term from scholastic logic.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bæ???k/

Rhymes: -?k

• (US) IPA^(key): /b???o?k/

Rhymes: -??k

Adjective

baroque (comparative baroquer, superlative baroquest)

1. Ornate, intricate, decorated, laden with detail.
2. Complex and beautiful, despite an outward irregularity.
3. Chiseled from stone, or shaped from wood, in a garish, crooked, twisted, or slanted sort of way, grotesque.
4. Embellished with figures and forms such that every level of relief gives way to more details and contrasts.
5. Characteristic of Western art music of about the same period.

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• Baquero

French

Etymology

Middle French baroque, originally denoting a pearl of irregular shape, from Italian barocco, Spanish barrueco, or Portuguese barroco, all possibly from Latin verr?ca (“wart”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba.??k/

Adjective

baroque (plural baroques)

1. baroque (all senses)

Descendants

• ? English: baroque
• ? Spanish: barroco

Further reading

• “baroque” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).