grotesque

comparative grotesquer · comparative more grotesque · superlative grotesquest · superlative most grotesque

1. Distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal, especially in a hideous way.

   The chimney-piece was of party-coloured marble, covered with figures, some of whose faces were beautiful, but generally running off into those grotesque combinations which characterised the peculiar taste of their time.

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 114

   2 more examples

   A Libyan longing took us, and we would have chosen, if we could, to bear a strand of grotesque beads, or a handful of brazen gauds, and traffic them for some sable maid with crisp locks, whom, uncoffling from the captive train beside the desert, we should make to do our general housework forever, through the right of lawful purchase.

   1912, The World's Wit and Humor, page 176

   Some of the vehicles are, indeed, taxis, but all of them are unoccupied, and most have their doors left open. There are colossally tall darkened figures stalking down the streets, so dark and slender that Wheeler actually fails to notice them. There is screaming, a grotesque, awful screaming coming from many human mouths, coming from somewhere down the main road. But that's the only way he can go.

   2019 April 10, qntm, “CASE HATE RED”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 141

2. Disgusting or otherwise viscerally revolting.

   Trump’s grotesque and incomprehensible fondness for Putin makes the details of any deal highly dangerous for Europe and the NATO alliance, founded to confront Russia.

   2024 November 9, Nick Paton Walsh, “Trump’s second term could bring chaos around the world. Will it work?”, in CNN, archived from the original on 26 Dec 2024

   Synonyms: gross

3. mediaSans serif.

plural grotesques

1. countableuncountableA style of ornamentation characterized by fanciful combinations of intertwined forms.
2. countableuncountableAnything grotesque.

   Obese and largely unintelligible, Don Vito represents a working-class white male grotesque, the picture of excess.

   2009, Emily Chivers Yochim, Skate Life, page 128

   2 more examples

   He’s also the new character from Sacha Baron Cohen, the man behind Ali G, Borat and Brüno: that unholy trinity of comic grotesques that told us a lot more about ourselves than we’d like to admit.

   2016 February 23, Robbie Collin, “Grimsby review: ' Sacha Baron Cohen's vital, venomous action movie'”, in The Daily Telegraph (London)

   You would say Stephen Miller, but Miller’s too hidden to qualify as a front-of-house henchman among the US president’s court of grotesques. Stephen’s clearly been judged so wantonly horrifying that the administration must keep him out of public view.

   2026 April 17, Marina Hyde, “Is the pope Catholic? JD Vance thinks he has an answer”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 30 May 2026

3. countableuncountablemediaA sans serif typeface.

present singular third person grotesques · participle present grotesquing · participle present grotesqueing · participle past grotesqued · past grotesqued

1. transitiveTo make grotesque.

   This is to grotesque Dante, not to translate him.

   1891 December 19, “Dante”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume LXXII, number 1,886, London: […], →OCLC, page 707, column 2

   3 more examples

   Why, when I saw that bestiality— / So beyond all brute-beast imagining, / That when, to point the moral at the close, / Poor Salabaccho, just to show how fair / Was ‘Reconciliation,’ stripped her charms, / That exhibition simply bade us breathe, / Seemed something healthy and commendable / After obscenity grotesqued so much / It slunk away revolted at itself.

   1875, Robert Browning, Aristophanes’ Apology […], London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 27

   At this point, species is seen antagonistically by the subject as something intent on restricting its freedom and grotesqueing its vitality.

   2010, Mark Driscoll, “Introduction”, in Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque: The Living, Dead, and Undead in Japan’s Imperialism, 1895–1945, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, →ISBN, page 11

   Filking also allows fans to ‘answer back’ by reworking – resisting, grotesquing or parodying – the negative media stereotypes thrown at them.

   2013, Mark Duffett, “Filking”, in Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to the Study of Media Fan Culture, New York, N.Y.; London: Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN, “Fan practices” section, page 187