Grotesque

Definition: Grotesque

Grotesque

Adjective

1. Distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous; "tales of grotesque serpents eight fathoms long that churned the seas"; "twisted into monstrous shapes".

2. Ludicrously odd; "Hamlet's assumed antic disposition"; "fantastic Halloween costumes"; "a grotesque reflection in the mirror".

Noun

1. Art characterized by an incongruous mixture of parts of humans and animals interwoven with plants.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "grotesque" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references)

Literature

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Synonyms: Grotesque

Distortion

Adjective: distorted; Verb: out of shape, irregular, asymmetric, unsymmetric, awry, wry, askew, crooked; not true, not straight; on one side, crump, deformed; harelipped; misshapen, misbegotten; misproportioned, ill proportioned; ill-made; grotesque, monstrous, crooked as a ram's horn; camel backed, hump backed, hunch backed, bunch backed, crook backed; bandy; bandy legged, bow legged; bow kneed, knock kneed; splay footed, club footed; round shouldered; snub nosed; curtailed of one's fair proportions; stumpy; (short); gaunt; (thin); bloated; scalene; simous; taliped, talipedic.

Inelegance

Adjective: inelegant, graceless, ungraceful; harsh, abrupt; dry, stiff, cramped, formal, guinde; forced, labored; artificial, mannered, ponderous; awkward, uncourtly, unpolished; turgid; affected, euphuistic; barbarous, uncouth, grotesque, rude, crude, halting; offensive to ears polite.

Ridiculousness

Adjective: ridiculous, ludicrous; comical; droll, funny, laughable, pour rire, grotesque, farcical, odd; whimsical, whimsical as a dancing bear; fanciful, fantastic, queer, rum, quizzical, quaint, bizarre; screaming; eccentric; (unconformable); strange, outlandish, out of the way, baroque, weird; awkward; (ugly).

Ugliness

Frightful, hideous, odious, uncanny, forbidding; repellant, repulsive, repugnant, grotesque, bizarre; grody, grody to the max; horrid, horrible; shocking; (painful).

Unconformity

Unusual, unaccustomed, uncustomary, unwonted, uncommon; rare, curious, odd, extraordinary, out of the ordinary; strange, monstrous; wonderful; unexpected, unaccountable; outre, out of the way, remarkable, noteworthy; queer, quaint, nondescript, none such, sui generis; unfashionable; fantastic, grotesque, bizarre; outlandish, exotic, tombe des nues, preternatural; denaturalized.

Crosswords: Grotesque

French (farcical, grotesque, ludicrous, ludicrousness, preposterous, ridiculous).

She was grotesque! (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer)

Choice! The boy has not a real choice, has he? Self-interest, the fear of physical pain drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement (A Clockwork Orange; writing credit: Stanley Kubrick)

The Grotesque (1995)

Grotesque (1988)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Books

• Auschwitz: True Tales from a Grotesque Land (reference)

• Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque (reference)

• Leonardo Da Vinci: The Divine and the Grotesque (reference)

• The Annotated H.G. Wells, 3 The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance: A Critical Text of the 1897 New York First Edition, with an Introduction and Appendices (reference)

• The Collector of Hearts : New Tales of the Grotesque (reference)

  (more book examples)

Music

• Caress the Grotesque (reference)

• Grotesque Blessings [EXPLICIT LYRICS] (reference)

  (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Grotesque limestone formations on ranch near Buford, Wyoming. Credit: Library of Congress.

Grotesque gyrations by gifted eccentriques. Credit: Library of Congress.

Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

(r)He abounded in pleasantries, oftener grotesque than witty , says Benjamin Constant

All costume off a man is pitiful or grotesque.

All your life you live so close to the truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Expressions using "grotesque": grotesque face ♦ grotesque monstrous unnatural. Additional references.

Albanian

grotesk, i panatyrshëm (far fetched, galvanic, stagey, stagy, strained), i çuditshëm (bizarre, cranky, curious, dark, eccentric, electric, erratic, extraordinary, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, frabjous, freak, freakish, funny, kinky, odd, oddish, off beat, outlandish, peculiar, pixilated, puzzling, quaint, queer, quizzical, rummy, strange, surprising, uncanny, unco, unnatural, unusual, viewy, way out, weird, whimsical). (various references)

Arabic 

‏فن زخرفي, ‏مغاير (alien, hetero-), ‏متنافر (conflicting, discordant, disharmonious, dissonant, incoherent, incompatible, incongruous, inconsistent, inharmonious, jarring), ‏غريب (absurd, alien, anomalous, antic, bizarre, eerie, eery, exotic, extraneous, fanciful, foreign, freakish, funny, intruder, ludicrous, new, odd, outlandish, outsider, peculiar, potty, quaint, queer, rum, senseless, singular, strange, stranger, tall, unaccustomed, uncanny, uncouth, unearthly, unfamiliar, unnatural, whimsical), ‏الغرتسك قطعة من الفن الزخرفي, ‏شىء متنافر. (various references)

Bulgarian 

странен (bizarre, comic, comical, fantastic, fantastical, freakish, funny, novel, odd, outlandish, peculiar, quaint, queer, remarkable, rum, rummy, screwy, singular, strange, uncanny, unco, unheard of, weird, whimsical), фантастичен (arabesque, fantastic, fantastical, visionary, wildcat), комично уродлив, гротесков (fantastic, fantastical), гротеска, грозен (eyesore, hideous, ill-favored, ill-favoured, morbid, ugly, unlovely, unsightly), плашило (bogey, fright, golliwog, hob, hobgoblin, scarecrow). (various references)

Chinese 

奇怪 (ODD, Outlandish, Peculiar, Queer, strange), 古怪 (eccentric, oddly, queer). (various references)

Czech

groteskní (antic, farcical, freak), podivínský (cranky, eccentric, freaked, freakish, odd, viewy), komický (amusing, comic, comical, droll, funny, humorous, quaint). (various references)

Danish

grotesk (doric, gothic, sans serif, sanserif). (various references)

Dutch

grotesk, grillig (capricious, fantastic, fitful, of fantasy). (various references)

Esperanto

groteska. (various references)

Farsi 

مضحک (Absurd, Burlesque, Comic, Droll, Hilarious, Laughable, Ludicrous, Preposterous, Ridiculous), غریب وعجیب (Bizarre), تناقض دار, بی تناسب (Disproportion, Incommensurate). (various references)

Finnish

groteski, irvokas (burlesque). (various references)

French

grotesque, ubuesque, caractère antique, antique. (various references)

German

grotesk (fantastic, gothic, ludicrous, ludicrously, preposterous, preposterously), fratzenhaft. (various references)

Greek 

παράξενοσ (bizarre, codger, crotchety, curious, eerie, freakish, funny, outlandish, peculiar, quaint, queer, quizzical, rum, strange), αλλόκοτοσ (bizarre, eerie, nondescript, odd, quaint, queer, weird), αλλόκοτος (queer, uncanny, weird), τραγελαφικός (monstrous), τερατώδης. (various references)

Hebrew 

מ�'וחך (absurd, farcical, ludicrous, mock, preposterous, ridiculous, stupid), תמ�"ו� י (eccentric, outlandish, peculiar, strange, weird), �'רוטסקי. (various references)

Hungarian

groteszk (bizarre, fantastic, fantasy, ludicrous, surreal), furcsa dolog. (various references)

Indonesian

fantasi (fancy, fantasy, illusion, imagination). (various references)

Italian

grottesco (antic, uncouth). (various references)

Japanese Kanji 

異形 (fantastic), グロー�"�電 (cage, cake, case, case by case, case method, case study, casework, caseworker, chaos, chassis ground, frame ground, gloria, glossary, glow discharge, groggy, knock-out, KO), グレゴリオ暦 (glen check, global, global market, global powers, global village, global war, globalism, globalist, globe, Gloria, glove, glove box, glove compartment, glow lamp, glow starter, Gregorian calendar, gremlin, grenade). (various references)

Japanese Katakana 

いぎょう (exploits, fantastic, great enterprise, medical practice, work left at death), グロテスク , グロ . (various references)

Korean 

괴기한 (spectral). (various references)

Manx

arraghtagh (gruesome). (various references)

Pig Latin

otesquegray.(various references)

Portuguese

grotesco (antic, bizarre, freak, ludicrous, ragtime, ridiculous). (various references)

Romanian

grotescul, grotesc (antic, ludicrous, peculiar), ridicol (clownish, derisive, farcical, foolish, humorous, laughable, laughably, ludicrous, preposterous, ridicule, ridiculous, ridiculously, risible), picturã sau sculpturã fantasticã. (various references)

Russian 

комический (buffo, comic, comical, шутл.), гротескный, нелепый (absurd, ludicrous, nonsensical, preposterous, ragtime, ridicule, ridiculous, ungodly), абсурдный (absurd, preposterous). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian

groteskan. (various references)

Spanish

grotesco (antic). (various references)

Swedish

grotesk (sans serif). (various references)

Thai

พิส�"าร. (various references)

Turkish

grotesk figür, grotesk (gothic), garip şekil, garip (awkward, bizarre, codger, comical, cranky, crotchety, curious, droll, eccentric, exotic, fanciful, fancy, fantastic, fantastical, far out, freak, freakish, funny, funny peculiar, kinky, odd, out of the way, outlandish, poor, queer, quizzical, rum, rummy, screwball, screwy, strange, weirdo, whimsical), gülünç (amusing, burlesque, camp, comic, derisive, derisory, droll, fantastic, fantastical, foolish, funny, gilbertian, humorous, jesting, laughable, ludicrous, ridiculous), anlamsız (absurd, barren, blank, dead pan, empty, expressionless, for the birds, frivolous, inane, incoherent, inept, inexpressive, insane, insignificant, meaningless, nonsense, nonsensical, of no significance, pointless, purposeless, ridiculous, senseless, sodden, unmeaning, unreasonable, vacuous, vain, yeasty), acayip (antic, bizarre, bughouse, comical, comically, crotchety, curious, droll, exotic, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, flaky, freak, freakish, incongruous, kinky, kooky, novel, odd, out of the way, outlandish, peculiar, quaint, queer, quirky, quizzical, rum, rummy, screwball, singular, some, splendiferous, strange, uncanny, unco, unusual, weird). (various references)

Ukrainian

фантастичний орнамент, гротесковий (baroque), гротескний (antic), гротеск (antic), абсурдний (absurd, inept, nonsensical). (various references)

Vietnamese 

lố bịch (absurd, comical, ludicrous, preposterous, priceless, ridiculous), kỳ cục (faddish, faddy, freakish, off-beat), bức tranh kỳ cục, bức tượng kỳ cục. (various references)

Derivations

Words beginning with "grotesque": grotesquely, grotesqueness, grotesquenesses, grotesquerie, grotesqueries, grotesquery, grotesques. (additional references)

Misspellings

"Grotesque" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: erotique, girocheque, gratesque, greotesque, grootesque, groteque, grotesquew, grotesqye, grothesque, grotoskew, Grotowski, grotsque, grottesque, ortonesque. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

-2 letters: gesture, quester, questor, quoters, request, roquets, torques.

-3 letters: egrets, ergots, erugos, greets, grouse, grouts, ouster, outers, outsee, queers, quoter, quotes, retuse, rogues, roques, roquet, rouges, routes, rugose, souter, stereo, stoure, togues, toques, torque.

-4 letters: egers, egest, egret, ergot, erose, erugo, ester, euros, geest, geste, goers, gores, gorse, gouts, grees, greet, grots, grout, grues.

+1 letter: grotesques.

+2 letters: grotesquely, grotesquery.

+3 letters: grotesquerie.

+4 letters: grotesqueness, grotesqueries.