garish

comparative more garish · superlative most garish

1. Overly ostentatious; so colorful as to be in bad taste.First known use 1540s

   The dress fits her well, but the pattern is rather garish.

   4 more examples

   "My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects;[…]."

   1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

   On the other hand, to arrive after dusk, when the multitude of garish little public-houses are lit up, giving glimpses of crowded jostling bars and taprooms, is an introduction to a fine city well calculated to affect even the most nonchalant.

   1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in Railway Magazine, page 703

   Leela: He gave me mechanical ears / Effective though just a bit garish.

   2003 August 10, Ken Keeler, “The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings”, in Futurama, season 5, episode 16 (television production), Fox Broadcasting Company

   She also said that Thameslink trains were deliberately garish, so as to lure drivers stuck on the M1, which runs alongside the line around Radlett.

   2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 57

   Synonyms: bedizened, blatant, blingish, brash, campy, catchpenny, chichi, chintzy