grotesquerie

plural grotesqueries · alternative grotesquery

1. countableuncountableAn instance of grotesqueness, a grotesque thing.
2. countableuncountableGrotesque things collectively.First known use 1655
3. countableuncountableGrotesqueness, the quality of being grotesque or macabre.

   The tone is brittle and morbid, emphasizing the eerie grotesquerie of Albert Giraud's poems.

   2009 January 12, Steve Smith, “Worlds Apart: Harmonies Earthbound and Lunar”, in New York Times

   1 more example

   She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realizing that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.

   1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter II (Burglary), page 378, column 1

4. countableuncountableliteratureA genre of horror literature that was popular in the early 20th century, and practiced by writers such as Ambrose Bierce and Fritz Leiber.