Word.ws English Dictionary

grotesquerie

UK/ɡɹəʊˈtɛskəɹi/US/ɡɹoʊˈtɛskəɹi/

grotesquerie noun: an instance of grotesqueness, a grotesque thing.

Noun

grotesquerie (countable and uncountable, plural grotesqueries)

  1. An instance of grotesqueness, a grotesque thing.
  2. Grotesque things collectively.
  3. Grotesqueness, the quality of being grotesque or macabre.
    • She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realizing that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter II...
    • The tone is brittle and morbid, emphasizing the eerie grotesquerie of Albert Giraud's poems.2009 January 12, Steve Smith, “Worlds Apart: Harmonies Earthbound and Lunar”, in New York Times
  4. A genre of horror literature that was popular in the early 20th century, and practiced by writers such as Ambrose Bierce and Fritz Leiber.

Forms of grotesquerie

pluralgrotesqueries
alternative formgrotesquery

Origin of grotesquerie

From French grotesquerie, from grotesque (“farcical, grotesque”) + -erie (“-ery”), from Italian grottesco, from grotta (“cave, grotto”) + -esco (“-esque, -ish”). Equivalent to grotesque + -erie.

Questions about grotesquerie

What does grotesquerie mean?
Grotesquerie means an instance of grotesqueness, a grotesque thing.
What part of speech is grotesquerie?
Grotesquerie is a noun.
How do you pronounce grotesquerie?
Grotesquerie is pronounced /ɡɹoʊˈtɛskəɹi/ (US).
What is the plural of grotesquerie?
The plural of grotesquerie is grotesqueries.

Words near grotesquerie in the dictionary

  1. grotesqueing
  2. grotesquely
  3. grotesqueness
  4. grotesquenesses
  5. grotesquer
  6. grotesquerie
  7. grotesqueries
  8. grotesquery
  9. grotesques
  10. grotesquest
  11. grotesquing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grotesquerie (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “grotesquerie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grotesquerie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.