baroque

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   In the highly decorated, dramatic style of European art and music of about 1600 to 1750.

   The church was a fine example of baroque architecture.

2. 2
   adj

   Far too complicated or elaborate.

   The new tax form involved baroque, confusing rules.

3. 3
   noun

   The ornate artistic style of 17th-century Europe.

   She wrote her thesis on music of the baroque.

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.

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