gaudy

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɔː.di/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɔ.di/
  • (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɑ.di/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːdi

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 *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.

gaudy (comparative gaudier, superlative gaudiest)

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

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

   • 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.

   • 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.

2. (obsolete) gay; merry; festive

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

   • Shakespeare

     Let's have one other gaudy night.

   • Twain

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

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

• gaudily
• gaudy night

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?)

Latin gaudium (“joy”)

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.