GROTESQUE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Grotesque

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/groʊtˈɛsk/ Listen

adjective

Grotesque adj.

Like the figures found in ancient grottoes; grottolike.

Hence: Wildly or strangely formed; whimsical; extravagant; of irregular forms and proportions; fantastic; ludicrous; antic. "Grotesque design." "Grotesque incidents."

noun

Grotesque n.

A whimsical figure, or scene, such as is found in old crypts and grottoes.

Artificial grotto-work.

See images of 'Grotesque'

Etymology of 'Grotesque'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Grotesque" Quotes from Famous Books

... surrounded by conventual buildings of modern date. It resembles the Abbaye aux Hommes in point of style, but the carving is more elaborate, and the transepts are much grander in design; the beautiful key-pattern borders, and the grotesque carving on the capitals of some of the pillars, strike the eye at once; but what is most remarkable is the extraordinary care with which the building has been restored, and the whole interior so scraped and chiselled afresh that it has the appearance of a building of ...

— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... fleet-foot, winged messenger, humble slave," laughed Louis, with another grotesque bow; but the rogue had cleverly put himself between the ...

— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... the country, and in her present serious mood, all this seemed grotesque and amazing to Natasha. She could not follow the opera nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but it was so pretentiously ...

— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... the mound swelled to resemble a paunchy trunk with sagging shoulders. This was topped by a huge, nearly round ball that looked for all the world like a head. There were even rudimentary features. It was grotesque—one of those freak sculptures of nature, Harley reflected, that made it seem as though the Old Girl had a mind and artistic ...

— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst

... we will yield to a more modern nomenclature and call it dignity. Whatever else it is, it is the thing which a thousand poets and a million lovers have called the coldness of Chloe. It is akin to the classical, and is at least the opposite of the grotesque. And since we are talking here chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good an embodiment as any of the idea may be found in the mere fact of a woman wearing a skirt. It is highly typical of the rabid plagiarism which now passes everywhere for emancipation, that a little while ago it was common ...

— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

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