• (British) IPA: /ˈɡɔː.di/
• (America) IPA: /ˈɡɔ.di/
  • (cot-caught) IPA: /ˈɡɑ.di/

From Middle English gaudi, from Old French gaudie, from Medieval Latin gaudia.

Alternatively, from Middle English gaudi, gawdy, from Old French gaude, galde, from Frankish *walda, from Proto-Germanic *walþō, *walþijō, akin to Old English *weald, *wielde (>Middle English welde, wolde and Anglo-Latin walda), Middle Low German wolde, Middle Dutch woude.

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.

gaudy (comparative gaudier, superlative gaudiest)

1. Very showy or ornamented, now especially when excessive, or in a tasteless or vulgar manner.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene iii]:

     Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, / But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy.

   • 1721, [Colley] Cibber, The Refusal; or, The Ladies Philosophy: A Comedy. […], London: […] B[arnaby Bernard] Lintot, […]; W[illiam] Mears, […]; and W[illiam Rufus] Chetwood, […], →OCLC ↗, Act I, page 2 ↗:

     Though, I confeſs, Paris has its Charms; but to me they are like thoſe of a Coquette, gay and gavvdy; they ſerve to amuſe vvith, but a Man vvould not chuſe to be marry'd to them.

   • 1813 January 26, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC ↗:

     The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of its proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.

   • 1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 3, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC ↗, page 19 ↗:

     A faded, and an ancient dragon he was; and many a wintry storm of rain, snow, sleet, and hail, had changed his colour from a gaudy blue to a faint lack-lustre shade of gray.

2. (obsolete) Fun; merry; festive.
   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene xiii]:

     Let's have one other gaudy night.

   • 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page)”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC ↗:

     And for my strange petition I will make
     Amends hereafter by some gaudy day

   • 1884 December 9, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer's Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC ↗:

     And then, there he was, slim and handsome, and dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw...

• (excessively showy) tawdry, flashy, garish, kitschy
• Thesaurus:gaudy

• French: voyant, criard, surfait, kitsch, vulgaire
• German: knallig, grell, protzig, kitschig, aufsehenerregend, knallbunt, farbenprächtig, schreiend, pompig, aufgetakelt
• Italian: chiassoso, vistoso, sgargiante, appariscente, pacchiano
• Portuguese: espalhafatoso, vistoso, chamativo
• Russian: цвета́стый
• Spanish: llamativo, vistoso, sobrecargado, vulgar, feúcho, chillón, hortera

gaudy (plural gaudies)

1. (archaic) One of the large beads in the rosary at which the paternoster is recited.

gaudy (plural gaudies)

1. (Oxon) A reunion held by one of the colleges of the University of Oxford for alumni, normally during the long vacation.