grotesque
Americanadjective
noun
adjective
-
strangely or fantastically distorted; bizarre
a grotesque reflection in the mirror
-
of or characteristic of the grotesque in art
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absurdly incongruous; in a ludicrous context
a grotesque turn of phrase
noun
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a 16th-century decorative style in which parts of human, animal, and plant forms are distorted and mixed
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a decorative device, as in painting or sculpture, in this style
-
printing the family of 19th-century sans serif display types
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any grotesque person or thing
Synonym Usage
See bizarre.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of grotesque
First recorded in 1555–65; from French, from Italian grottesca (from pittura grottesca, opera grottesca “grotesque painting, decoration” such as was apparently found in excavated buildings), the feminine of grottesco “grotesque, uncouth,” derivative of grotta “cave.” See grotto, -esque
Compare meaning
How does grotesque compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Use grotesque to describe things that are very strange and ugly in an unnatural way. If something "grosses you out," you can safely refer to it as grotesque. Grotesque also refers to a style of art that uses odd and fanciful combinations of natural, human, and animal forms. The original reference was to cave paintings found in ancient Roman ruins. Our English word is from French, from Italian grottesca pittura, "a cave painting," from grotta, "cave." Italian grotta is the source of our English word grotto.
Vocabulary lists containing grotesque
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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Holes
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"Marigolds," Vocabulary from the short story
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She physically twists Odysseus’ men into pigs in a grotesque sequence of body horror, with no romance, yearlong idyll or magical help.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Fair warning for those who dare to risk entry to the eerie and unsettling horror feature “Backrooms”: This film contains graphic, even grotesque imagery of early 1990s furniture.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
One former SNP head of communications claimed "a routine process" had been turned into a "grotesque spectacle".
From BBC ● May 25, 2026
David Plotz: What is a story about the family and the family dynamics that most shocked you, that seemed most grotesque when you told your wife about it?
From Slate ● Mar. 21, 2026
When Samira and I arrived at the hospital to meet him, he'd taken a wet poop in his diaper, and his belly button looked like a giant, grotesque scab.
From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi
Part of this is in the rich tradition of European reporters sojourning in the United States who find casual grotesques about Americans far more lucrative and less taxing than actually trying to meet the natives.
From Slate ● Mar. 10, 2026
But he had his own quirky, even obsessive interests—in all things ancient and Roman, in architecture, and especially in the hybrid ornamental figures known as grotesques.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 21, 2026
With the genre claiming 17% of the domestic box office for 2025, production studios are eager to feed our seemingly bottomless appetite for cinematic grotesques, especially those based on true stories.
From Salon ● Oct. 29, 2025
And then there is the structure itself, with its towering walls of stone, its flying buttresses and its weird populace of gargoyles and grotesques watching the city from on high.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 25, 2022
It’s even proposed that the grotesques in medieval art may have been influenced by Ad Herennium s advice on the use of outlandish images to nail an idea in memory.
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
