gaudy
English
WOTD – 7 November 2010
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈɡɔː.di/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈɡɔ.di/
- (cot–caught merger) IPA(key): /ˈɡɑ.di/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ɔːdi
Etymology 1
From Middle English gaudi, from Old French gaudie, from Medieval Latin gaudia. equivalent to gaud (“ornament, trinket”) + -y.
Alternatively, from Middle English gaudi, gawdy (“yellowish”), from Old French gaude, galde (“weld (the plant)”), from Frankish *walda, from Proto-Germanic *walþō, *walþijō, 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)
- Very showy or ornamented, now especially when excessive, or in a tasteless or vulgar manner.
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene iii]:
- Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, / But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy.
- 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton […], OCLC 38659585:
- 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.
- 1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 3, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, OCLC 977517776, page 19:
- A faded, and an ancient dragon he was; and many a wintry storm of rain, snow, sleet, and hail, had changed his colour from a gaudy blue to a faint lack-lustre shade of gray.
- 1887, Homer Greene, Burnham Breaker:
- A large gaudy, flowing cravat, and an ill-used silk hat, set well back on the wearer's head, completed this somewhat noticeable costume.
- 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.
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- (obsolete) Fun; merry; festive.
- c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene xiii]:
- Let's have one other gaudy night.
- 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page)”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], OCLC 911789798:
- And for my strange petition I will make
Amends hereafter by some gaudy day
- 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 22, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], OCLC 458431182:
- And then, there he was, slim and handsome, and dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw...
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Synonyms
- (excessively showy): tawdry, flashy, garish, kitschy
- Thesaurus:gaudy
Derived terms
- gaudily
- gaudiness
Translations
very showy or ornamented
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Noun
gaudy (plural gaudies)
- (archaic) One of the large beads in the rosary at which the paternoster is recited.
- 1894, James Hamilton Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth, volume 2, pages 356–7:
- In 1458, the owner of the precious book, which had been taken from the martyr’s body at the block, left a rosary of 50 coral beads with gold gaudies, to his “beloved, most blessed Saint Richard Scrope,” to help in his canonization, with a prayer to God that it might be granted of His great grace.
- 1919, Frederic William Moorman, Plays of the Ridings, pages 8–9:
- The circling year was to him like the rosary over which he recited his aves and paternosters; the “gaudies” or larger beads were the holidays set at regular intervals along the string, […]
- 1952 [1387–1400], Geoffrey Chaucer, Nevill Coghill, transl., The Canterbury Tales, page 29:
- She wore a coral trinket on her arms, / A set of beads, the gaudies tricked in green, / Whence hung a golden brooch of brightest sheen […]
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Etymology 2
Borrowed from Latin gaudium (“joy”). Doublet of joy and jo.
Noun
gaudy (plural gaudies)
- (Oxford University) A reunion held by one of the colleges of the University of Oxford for alumni, normally held during the long vacation.
Derived terms
- gaudy night