Noun: gaudy
| Singular | gaudy |
| Plural | gaudies |
Sample Sentences
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In 1458, the owner of the precious book, which had been taken from the martyr’s body at the block, left a rosary of 50 coral beads with gold gaudies, to his “beloved, most blessed Saint Richard Scrope,” to help in his canonization, with a prayer to God that it might be granted of His great grace. [1894, James Hamilton Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth, volume 2, pages 356–7:]
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The circling year was to him like the rosary over which he recited his aves and paternosters; the “gaudies” or larger beads were the holidays set at regular intervals along the string, […] [1919, Frederic William Moorman, Plays of the Ridings, pages 8–9:]
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She wore a coral trinket on her arms, / A set of beads, the gaudies tricked in green, / Whence hung a golden brooch of brightest sheen […] [1952 [1387–1400], Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales, page 29:]
Nouns inflected like gaudy
clitoridectomy,
royal jelly,
whoopsy,
surrogacy,
urinary,
rastrography,
renoscopy,
sourtop blueberry,
forcible entry,
superficiary,
lipidosity,
potability,
phonography,
hyperproperty,
greenery,
conjugality,
ring singularity,
Brittany,
ignobility,
obscurity, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From Middle English gaudi, from Old French gaudie, from Medieval Latin gaudia. equivalent to gaud (“ornament, trinket”) + -y.
2. Alternatively, from Middle English gaudi, gawdy (“yellowish”), from Old French gaude, galde (“weld (the plant)”), from Frankish *walda, from Proto-Germanic *walþō, *walþijō, akin to Old English *weald, *wielde (>Middle English welde, wolde and Anglo-Latin walda (“alum”)), Middle Low German wolde, Middle Dutch woude. More at English weld.
3. A common claim that the word derives from Antoni Gaudí, designer of Barcelona's Sagrada Família Basilica, is incorrect: the word was in use centuries before Gaudí was born. See: Middle English Nouns '
gaudi', Middle English Nouns '
gaudi', Middle English Nouns '
welde', Latin Nouns '
walda', English Nouns '
weld'.