GROTESQUE

Grotesque

The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "grotto", which originated from Greek krypte "hidden place", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century. The "caves" were in fact rooms and corridors of the Domus Aurea, the unfinished palace complex started by Nero after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, which had become overgrown and buried, until they were broken into again, mostly from above. Spreading from Italian to the other European languages, the term was long ...

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grotesque

Noun

  1. A style of ornamentation characterized by fanciful combinations of intertwined forms.
  2. Anything grotesque.
  3. A sans serif typeface.

Adjective

  1. distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
  2. disgusting or otherwise viscerally reviling.
  3. sans serif.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: grotesque
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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