baroque

Etymology

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.

adj

1. Ornate, intricate, decorated, laden with detail.
2. Complex and beautiful, despite an outward irregularity.
3. Chiseled from stone, or shaped from wood, in a garish, crooked, twisted, or slanted sort of way, grotesque.
4. Embellished with figures and forms such that every level of relief gives way to more details and contrasts.
5. Characteristic of Western art and music of the Early Modern period.
6. (figurative) Overly and needlessly complicated.
   grotesquely baroque bureaucratic hassles
   baroque bookkeeping in pursuit of tax dodges

noun

1. An ornate, detailed style.
   […] has semi-circular arches similar to those in Bourges, but pierced by unusual and irregular openings, and ringed with amusing portrait heads such as would not be found in the great Gothic Baroques of France. 2003, Michael Jacobs, The Road to Santiago, page 103