| 单词 | rococo |
| 例句 | rococo adjective •rococo draperies:ornate, fancy, elaborate, extravagant, baroque | fussy, busy, ostentatious, showy | flowery, florid, flamboyant, high-flown, magniloquent, orotund, bombastic, overwrought, overblown, inflated, turgid | informal highfalutin. ANT plain.WORD NOTE rococo, baroque In the complex, intricate, sometimes confusing and generally Byzantine world of choice and subtlety that is the English language, it is sometimes necessary to decide whether, in describing things that are similarly complex, intricate, and Byzantine, it is proper to employ the adjective rococo or baroque. Essentially the words have senses which are synonymous, though their etymologies (both have French origins) are not: rococo has something to do with ornate shell- or pebble-based decoration, while baroque may stem, oddly, from the very same root that gives us the far less appealing word verruca, the highly transmissible plantar wart to which the feet of summertime athletes are prone. In view of this displeasing association, baroque might seem to lean in a subtly pejorative direction—except that with the typical perversity of the language, usage suggests quite otherwise. Rococo has now come to mean tastelessly and tackily florid and ornate, while baroque is merely curlicued and frantically odd, but only whimsically so. Thus if it—whether by ‘it’ we mean a hairpiece, a chair leg, or a State of the Union address—is complicated, intricate, and vulgar, it is rococo. If it is merely endowed with flowery intricacy, but is more or less acceptable to a person of reasonable taste, it is best described simply as baroque. — SWConversational, opinionated, and idiomatic, these Word Notes are an opportunity to see a working writer's perspective on a particular word or usage. |
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