grotesquerie
(grəʊˈtɛskərɪ)
Also grotesquery.
[as if a. F. *grotesquerie, f. grotesque grotesque.]
Grotesque objects collectively; grotesque quality; a piece of grotesqueness.
| 1654–66 Ld. Orrery Parthenissa (1676) 517 In a large Compartiment composed of Groteskery were seen Sphynxes, Harpyes, the Claws of Lyons and Tygers, to evidence that within inhabited Mysteries and Riddles. 1862 R. Taylor Home & Abr. Ser ii. II. 339 Where so much is beautiful, the occasional anomalies and grotesqueries of taste fail to offend you. 1877 ‘H. A. Page’ De Quincy I. v. 92 Casting a ‘jet’ of gentle humour over the grim grotesquerie of the situation. 1878 Bayne Purit. Rev. iii. 59 The incidents..of waking existence are therein..tossed and heaped together as the materials of a wild grotesquerie. 1880 Howells Undisc. Country xiii. 197 She showed her sense of degradation in the brutal grotesquery. 1885 Manch. Exam. 22 July 3/2 The inventive grotesquerie of his [Gustave Doré's] later work. |