Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality or condition of being gaudy; showiness; ostentatiousness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality of being gaudy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Pretension in appearance; looking overly done and distastefully adorned.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun strident color or excessive ornamentation
  • noun tasteless showiness

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

gaudy +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • The use of a little gum guacum in solution will be found occasionally advantageous; this gum is fairly hard and will lower the colour and prevent too much of an approach to gaudiness, that is, if a highly coloured varnish has been found necessary.

    The Repairing & Restoration of Violins 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. Horace Petherick 1879

  • Situating its apparent "gaudiness" well beyond any sense of what might constitute the aesthetically appropriate, Lewis's romance was denounced by Coleridge as a malevolent network of "libidinous minuteness," an intricate web which, once activated, articulated for even its most suspecting of readers a range of "powerful stimulants" and "meretricious attractions."

    Gothic Visions, Romantic Acoustics 2005

  • For one thing, she's synonymous with barrel-scraping gaudiness: Surprise Surprise, Moment Of Truth, Blind Date.

    Charlie Brooker's Screen burn: Blind Date Charlie Brooker 2010

  • A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain… a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing.

    In a bit of a flap: Lauren Laverne 2012

  • You were caterpillar-brained from the start and our gaudiness made you blush and stutter.

    Day 10: Butterfly Morning Jane Flett 2011

  • GREENE: Even before Liberace's death in 1987, fans could check out some of his more notorious outfits and revel in his cheery gaudiness at the Liberace museum, where else, on Tropicana Avenue in Vegas.

    Liberace Museum To Close Its Doors 2010

  • GREENE: Even before Liberace's death in 1987, fans could check out some of his more notorious outfits and revel in his cheery gaudiness at the Liberace museum, where else, on Tropicana Avenue in Vegas.

    Liberace Museum To Close Its Doors 2010

  • And yet, there were moments when she felt more ephemeral than ever, when the gaudiness of this experience-hoarding made her all the more unsure of what it meant to be living.

    ALONE With You Marisa Silver 2010

  • And yet, there were moments when she felt more ephemeral than ever, when the gaudiness of this experience-hoarding made her all the more unsure of what it meant to be living.

    ALONE With You Marisa Silver 2010

  • GREENE: Even before Liberace's death in 1987, fans could check out some of his more notorious outfits and revel in his cheery gaudiness at the Liberace museum, where else, on Tropicana Avenue in Vegas.

    Liberace Museum To Close Its Doors 2010

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