outré

comparative more outré · superlative most outré · alternative outre · alternative outrée

1. Beyond what is customary or proper; extravagant.

   Are his patrons simply too giddy in this post-pandemic moment to muster sustained outrage over his outré behavior?

   2021 July 17, Jacob Bernstein, “Keith McNally Stirs the Pot”, in The New York Times

   3 more examples

   I believe I have been very rude; but really Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a way—so very odd a way—that I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw any thing so outrée!—Those curls!—This must be a fancy of her own. I see nobody else looking like her!

   1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter VIII, in Emma: […], volume II, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, page 152

   He hated people who did not know where to stop. Ernest was always so outré and strange; there was never any knowing what he would do next, except that it would be something unusual and silly.

   1903, Samuel Butler, chapter 50, in The Way of All Flesh

   Her career as a performer, a model and a high priestess of the outré has been rooted for decades in catwalk-Kabuki mischief and provocation.

   2015 October 22, Jeff Gordinier, “‘I’ll Never Write My Memoirs,’ Grace Jones’s Memoirs”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

2. Very unconventional.

   1992, David Littlejohn, The Ultimate Art: Essays Around and About Opera, Chapter 16: The Twentieth Century Takes on Shakespeare, page 261, To begin with, King Lear is the most unconventional, the most nearly hysterical, the most outré and outrageous play Shakespeare ever wrote.

   Synonyms: bizarre, eccentric, outlandish