GROTESQUE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • 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

... own part, and leaving others to play theirs, assured that for all and each this life is the trial-time and test of eternity, the rehearsal for the performance in a future world, and "Things rarely go smooth at Rehearsal." Browning's joy in difficult rhyming as seen in this serio-grotesque jingle was great; some readers may be permitted to wish that many of his rhymes were not merely difficult but impossible. At a dinner given by Sir Leslie Stephen he met successfully the challenge to produce a rhyme ...

— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... fitting deerskin coats reaching half way to the knees and decorated with elaborately painted designs in many colours. Their heads were covered with hairy hoods, and the ears of the animal from which they were made gave a grotesque and savage appearance to the wearers. Light fitting buckskin leggings, fringed on the outer side, encased their legs, and a pair of deerskin mittens dangled from the ends of a string which was slung around the ...

— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... sixteen years, since I was fourteen and she was a little maid of two, and I lived neighbour to her in Suffolkshire. I can see myself at fourteen and laugh at the picture. All of us have our phases of comedy, our seasons when we are out of perspective and approach the grotesque and furnish our own ...

— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... bete noire wreathed in smoke, coming on top of the emotions of the night, was almost too much for Mr Abney. He gesticulated for a moment in impassioned silence, his arms throwing grotesque ...

— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... on the right side, the steep limestone hill being all in shadow, and the rough blocks looked like grotesque creatures peering out from among the blackening bushes; and as he rode on, the lad could not help thinking that by night the place might easily scare ignorant, untutored, superstitious people, who saw, or fancied they saw, strange lights here ...

— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

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