''baroque'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''baroque'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260130210911-00-⌔

baroque - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

baroque (comparative baroquer, superlative baroquest)

• Ornate, intricate, decorated, laden with detail.
• Complex and beautiful, despite an outward irregularity.
• Chiseled from stone, or shaped from wood, in a garish, crooked, twisted, or slanted sort of way, grotesque.
• Embellished with figures and forms such that every level of relief gives way to more details and contrasts.
• (sometimes capitalized) Characteristic of Western art and music of the Early Modern period.
  • ✤ According to baroque.org, characteristics of baroque music include loud and soft dynamics, emphasis on harmony, and the use of string instruments and the harpsichord.¹
• (figuratively) Overly and needlessly complicated.
  • ✤ grotesquely baroque bureaucratic hassles
  • ✤ * baroque bookkeeping in pursuit of tax dodges*

Noun

baroque (plural baroques)

• An ornate, detailed style.
  • ✤ […] has semi-circular arches similar to those in Bourges, but pierced by unusual and irregular openings, and ringed with amusing portrait heads such as would not be found in the great Gothic Baroques of France.²

Etymology

Via French baroque (which originally meant a pearl of irregular shape), from Portuguese barroco (“irregular pearl”); related to Spanish barrueco and Italian barocco, of uncertain ultimate origin, but possibly from Latin verrūca (“wart”). It has been suggested that the term derives from Baroco, a technical term from scholastic logic.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /bæˈɹɒk/
  • ✤ Rhymes: -ɒk
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (US) IPA: /bəˈɹoʊk/
  • ✤ Rhymes: -əʊk

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 2022 May 2, Mary Beth Bauermann, “Bach-Rock: When Rock Went Baroque”, in Flat Hat Magazine ‎${}^{[1]}$, archived from the original on 9 July 2025: ↩

2. 2003, Michael Jacobs, The Road to Santiago, page 103: ↩

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