baroque
[buh-rohk; French ba-rawk]
- (often initial capital letter) of or relating to a style of architecture and art originating in Italy in the early 17th century and variously prevalent in Europe and the New World for a century and a half, characterized by free and sculptural use of the classical orders and ornament, by forms in elevation and plan suggesting movement, and by dramatic effect in which architecture, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts often worked to combined effect.
- (sometimes initial capital letter) of or relating to the musical period following the Renaissance, extending roughly from 1600 to 1750.
- extravagantly ornate, florid, and convoluted in character or style: the baroque prose of the novel's more lurid passages.
- irregular in shape: baroque pearls.
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- (often initial capital letter) the baroque style or period.
- anything extravagantly ornamented, especially something so ornate as to be in bad taste.
- an irregularly shaped pearl.
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Origin of baroque
1755–65; < French < Portuguese barroco, barroca irregularly shaped pearl (of obscure origin; compare Spanish berrueco, barrueco granitic crag, irregular pearl, spherical nodule), probably conflated with Medieval Latin baroco invented word for a kind of obfuscating syllogism
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for baroque
Contemporary Examples
Dinner was a baroque affair, on the beach, a warm breeze gently blowing.
Inside, the club is built like a baroque theater, with a dance floor in the center and rows of loggias up the walls.
Who was the most erotic poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque, when the quatrain reached its courtly zenith?
Matthew just got it—the dialogue especially, as baroque as it is.
The clavecinistes of the French baroque were especially keen on the idea.
Historical Examples
An early letter from Rome had a good deal to say about the Baroque.
On the StairsHenry B. Fuller
The architecture is Gothic, with many traces of Baroque and Mudjar art.
Old Continental TownsWalter M. Gallichan
The body is constructed of a baroque pearl; the tail terminates in a point.
JewelleryH. Clifford Smith,
The church is gray limestone, like the residence, with a baroque faade.
The Haciendas of MexicoPaul Alexander Bartlett
True, the beauty of baroque had not been discovered in his day.
AloneNorman Douglas
baroque
- a style of architecture and decorative art that flourished throughout Europe from the late 16th to the early 18th century, characterized by extensive ornamentation
- a 17th-century style of music characterized by extensive use of the thorough bass and of ornamentation
- any ornate or heavily ornamented style
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- denoting, being in, or relating to the baroque
- (of pearls) irregularly shaped
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Word Origin
C18: from French, from Portuguese barroco a rough or imperfectly shaped pearl
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for baroque
adj.
1765, from French baroque (15c.) "irregular," from Portuguese barroco "imperfect pearl," of uncertain origin, perhaps related to Spanish berruca "a wart."
This style in decorations got the epithet of Barroque taste, derived from a word signifying pearls and teeth of unequal size. [Fuseli's translation of Winkelmann, 1765]
Klein suggests the name may be from Italian painter Federigo Barocci (1528-1612), a founder of the style. How to tell baroque from rococo, according to Fowler: "The characteristics of baroque are grandeur, pomposity, and weight; those of rococo are inconsequence, grace, and lightness." But the two terms often used without distinction for styles featuring odd and excessive ornamentation.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
baroque
[(buh-rohk)]
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.