ba·roque

(bə-rōk′)

adj.

1. also Baroque Of, relating to, or characteristic of a style in art and architecture developed in Europe from the early 17th to mid-18th century, emphasizing dramatic, often strained effect and typified by bold, curving forms, elaborate ornamentation, and overall balance of disparate parts.

2. also Baroque Music Of, relating to, or characteristic of a style of composition that flourished in Europe from about 1600 to 1750, marked by expressive dissonance and elaborate ornamentation.

3. Extravagant, complex, or bizarre, especially in ornamentation: "the baroque, encoded language of post-structural legal and literary theory" (Wendy Kaminer).

4. Irregular in shape: baroque pearls.

n. also Baroque

The baroque style or period in art, architecture, or music.

[French, from Italian barocco, imperfect pearl, and from Portuguese barroco.]

ba·roque′ly adv.

ba·roque′ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

baroqueness - elaborate and extensive ornamentation in decorative art and architecture that flourished in Europe in the 17th century

baroque

artistic style, idiom - the style of a particular artist or school or movement; "an imaginative orchestral idiom"

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

As a prose writer she had written composite and heterogeneous novels before The Black Prince, so to speak unattentive of a style (believing, like Shakespeare, that her style is reality, contingency), giving life to the baroqueness of her intricate plots, only in his own narrative within Murdoch's novel, now Pearson's vision of Hamlet makes him arrive at a conclusion about Shakespeare's special style.

Iris confesses

A final reason for the Act's baroqueness may be because, rather than building upon a pre-existing foundation of compatible domestic law and practice as in the case of Singapore's ICAA, the Act essentially reflects an effort to graft a treaty onto a system of family law that is arguably inconsistent with it.

Will the child abduction treaty become more "Asian"? A first look at the efforts of Singapore and Japan to implement the Hague Convention

The Baroqueness comes in its organization, its repetition, its circling around: the people lost in the snow in that story don't know where they are and circle around just as the language revolves a come use If in slow loops.

Musical patterns in William H. Gass's "A Fugue" and The Pedersen Kid

All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.