grotesque

• n. 奇异风格；怪异的东西
• adj. 奇形怪状的；奇怪的；可笑的

来自grotto, 石窟，洞穴，词源同crypt, 隐藏。来自意大利语，通常认为来自16世纪在罗马废墟洞穴发现的奇怪的壁画，因而引申该词义。

grotesque

grotesque: [16] Etymologically, grotesque means ‘grotto-like’. Its Italian source, grottesco, was used in the phrase pittura grottesca, literally ‘grotto-like pictures’, denoting wall paintings of the sort discovered in the excavated basements of old buildings. Many of them were evidently bizarre or highly imaginative, and so grottesca came to mean ‘fanciful, fantastic’.

English acquired the word via Old French crotesque (crotescque was the earliest English spelling, later re-formed as grotesque on the basis of French grotesque and Italian grottesca), and in general use from the mid-18th century onward it slid towards the pejorativeness of ‘ludicrous, absurd’. The colloquial abbreviation grotty is first recorded in print in 1964.
=> grotto

grotesque (adj.)

"wildly formed, of irregular proportions, boldly odd," c. 1600s, originally a noun (1560s), from Middle French crotesque (16c., Modern French grotesque), from Italian grottesco, literally "of a cave," from grotta (see grotto). The explanation that the word first was used of paintings found on the walls of Roman ruins revealed by excavation (Italian pittura grottesca) is "intrinsically plausible," according to OED. Originally merely fanciful and fantastic, the sense became pejorative, "clownishly absurd, uncouth," after mid-18c. As the British name for a style of square-cut, sans-serif letter, from 1875. Related: Grotesquely; grotesqueness.

来自柯林斯例句

2. a grotesque distortion of the truth

对事实的荒诞歪曲

来自《权威词典》

3. She has become a grotesque parody of her former elegant self.

她成为了以前那个举止优雅的自己的怪诞模仿品.

来自《简明英汉词典》

4. Her account of the incident was a grotesque distortion of the truth.

她对这件事的陈述是荒诞地歪曲了事实.

来自《简明英汉词典》

5. The two stone lions, of grotesque shape, guard the entrance.

两只形态奇异的石狮子守卫着入口处.

来自《现代汉英综合大词典》