gaudy

English

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)

1. 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 Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, / But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy.

   • 1721, [Colley] Cibber, The Refusal; or, The Ladies Philosophy: A Comedy. , London: B Lintot, ; W Mears, ; and W Chetwood, , →OCLC, Act I, page 2:

     Though, I confeſs, Paris has its Charms; but to me they are like thoſe of a Coquette, gay and gavvdy; they ſerve to amuſe vvith, but a Man vvould not chuſe to be marry'd to them.

   • 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice: , volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: for T Egerton, , →OCLC:

     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, 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 January 9, Thomas Hauser, Marilyn Cole Lownes, “How Bling-bling Took Over the Ring”, in The Observer:

     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.
   • 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 Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Let's have one other gaudy night.

   • 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page)”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., , →OCLC:

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

   • 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) , London: Chatto & Windus, , →OCLC:

     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
• gaudiness

Translations

Noun

gaudy (plural gaudies)

1. (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, translated by Nevill Coghill, 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 […]

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Latin gaudium (“joy”). Doublet of joy and jo.

Noun

gaudy (plural gaudies)

1. (Oxford University) A reunion held by one of the colleges of the University of Oxford for alumni, normally during the long vacation.

Derived terms

• gaudy night