rococoadj.n.
/rəˈkəʊkəʊ/, U.S. /rəˈkoʊkoʊ/, /roʊˈkoʊkoʊ/, /ˈroʊkəˌkoʊ/ A. adj.
I. Senses relating to the arts.
1.
a. Designating furniture, architecture, etc., characterized by an elaborately ornamental late baroque style of decoration prevalent in 18th-cent. Europe, with asymmetrical patterns involving intricate motifs and scrollwork.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > ornamental art and craft > [adjective] > specific style
Moorish1434
savage1548
damaskeen1551
grotesque1603
Mogul1617
pierced1756
baroque1765
rocaille1776
rococo1830
plateresque1845
Alhambresque1848
François Premier1850
Mudéjar1865
serio-grotesque1873
famille verte1876
barocco1877
rococoesque1885
famille rose1893
famille noire1898
Ch'ien Lung1901
Marie Antoinette1909
Mosan1910
famille jaune1923
Romanizing1936
quatre-couleur1959
penworked1965
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > architecture > style of architecture > [adjective] > other styles
florida1706
massive1723
rounded1757
round-arched1782
castellar1789
baronial1807
rational1813
English colonial1817
massy1817
transitional1817
Scottish Baronial1829
rococo1830
flamboyant1832
Scotch Baronial1833
Churrigueresque1845
Russo-Byzantine1845
soaring1849
trenchant1849
vernacular1857
Scots Baronial1864
baroque1867
Perp.1867
rayonnant1873
Dutch colonial1876
Neo-Grec1878
rococoesque1885
Richardsonian1887
federal1894
organic1896
confectionery1897
European-style1907
postmodern1916
Lutyens1921
modern1927
moderne1928
functionalist1930
Williamsburg1931
Colonial Revival1934
packing case1935
Corbusian1936
lavatorial1936
pseudish1938
Adamesque1942
rationalist1952
Miesian1956
open-planned1958
Lutyensesque1961
façade1962
Odeon1964
high-tech1979
Populuxe1986
1830 Lady Morgan France in 1829–30 II. 427 Their fine Rococo tracery, and gilt cornices, with their ponderous ornaments of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, give them an air of the times.
1844 W. M. Thackeray Little Trav. in Wks. (1900) VI. 27 The rococo architects have introduced their ornaments.
1851 H. Mogford Handbk. Preserv. Pict. (ed. 3) i. 10 The poverty of invention, and rococo design of most of the picture-frames now made.
1876 T. Hardy Hand of Ethelberta I. ii. 24 An oval mirror of rococo workmanship.
1918 Heal & Son Catal.: Cottage Furnit. 1 The ‘new art’ overmantel smothered in rococo photograph frames.
1958 R. Jaffe Best of Everything ii. 16 Converted brownstones, converted whitestones, converted rococo mansions.
1972 Country Life 7 Dec. 1574/1 All these rooms have delicate rococo plaster ceilings picked out in pale pastel shades.
2000 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) Feb. 160/3 She did up the spectacular dining room with its Louis XV rococo boiseries and painted overdoors.
b. Designating work in other art forms, esp. music and painting, during the same period, sharing certain characteristics with work in the decorative arts, such as intricacy of detail and a sense of playfulness; of, or characteristic of, work of this kind.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > [adjective] > style of composition
grandc1666
romantic1836
routinier1837
parodistic1845
rococo1868
virtuose1873
virtuosic1879
galant1884
polymorphous1890
monothematic1894
rococo1904
impressionistic1908
salon1914
gallant1925
athematic1935
non-thematic1946
minimalistic1947
stochastic1958
progressive1963
minimal1968
post-minimal1971
minimalist1977
1868 Musical World 14 Mar. 17/2 This somewhat ‘rococo’ music of the great master [sc. Handel].
1881 Daily Tel. 27 Dec. That stately rococo dance, the Minuet de la Cour.
1883 Cent. Mag. Mar. 669/2 He was originally only a color-rubber in the studio of one of the old rococo painters.
1897 K. Francke Social Forces in German Lit. (ed. 2) vii. 252 Weak imitations of French rococo literature.
1931 Notes & Queries 15 Aug. 109/2 It is further planned to give Goethe plays and rococo concerts on an open-air stage.
1955 Times 21 July 7/7 Stravinsky's choice of a more or less definite rococo pastiche is a highly appropriate musical idiom.
1974 Burlington Mag. June 357/1 The movement through which his lovers express their passion seems like a passage from a rococo ballet.
1988 Oxf. Dict. Art 427/2 Watteau is generally regarded as the first great Rococo painter.
1999 Houston Chron. (Nexis) 22 June (Houston section) 1 Throughout the recital, [he] played the folk songs' almost rococo piano accompaniments with exceptional grace and beauty.
2.
a. Designating the characteristically intricate and flamboyant style of art prevalent in 18th-cent. Europe; of or relating to this style. Also: typical or suggestive of the culture of Europe at the time this style predominated.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > 17th century-mid 19th century > [adjective] > other styles of 17-mid 19th century
rococo1840
Louis Quatorze1855
Louis Quinze1875
colonial1886
Louis Seize1892
Louis Treize1892
Queen Anneish1926
Directoire1942
1840 Civil Engineer & Architect's Jrnl. 3 155/1 We wonder the trustees do not think of charging a shilling, it would be carrying out the rococo style completely.
1841 Countess of Blessington Idler in France I. i. 21 The whole [of the terraces near La Tour-Magne at Nîmes] offering a curious mixture of military and rococo taste.
1842 Times 11 Jan. 3/4 The Castle of Etterburg..is also about to be restored in the Rococo style.
1887 W. Pater Imag. Portraits 150 That rococo seventeenth-century French imitation of the true Renaissance.
1938 W. S. Maugham Summing Up 28 Dryden flourished at a happy moment... He was the first of the rococo artists.
1959 Listener 26 Nov. 952/1 Haydn's symphonic music began as rococo entertainment.
1990 World of Interiors Sept. 169/1 Pared-down classicism and painted surfaces replaced Rococo frivolity.
1996 L. Al-Hafidh et al. Europe: Rough Guide (ed. 3) ii. ix. 425 This is the supreme expression of the Rococo style, marrying a cunning design..with the most extravagant decoration imaginable.
b. Ornate or intricate, esp. extravagantly or excessively so.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > bad taste > lack of simplicity > [adjective] > over-elaborate
finical1592
niggling1813
finicking1831
rococo1844
chichi1926
foofy1984
1844 Rover Mag. 3 14/1 I think he has slicked the hair down a leetle too much. I wear it a good deal more in the Rococo fashion now days.
1878 E. Jenkins Haverholme 65 The florid and rococo notions of Imperial glory flourished by his political chief.
1961 W. Brandon Indians 106/1 Ingrown chivalry reached its most rococo luxuriance among the Spanish knights.
1967 J. A. Baker Peregrine iii. 51 They flourish their rococo flight above the surging water.
1977 N. Marsh Black as he's Painted iv. 97 The somewhat rococo circumstances of that Ambassador having been murdered.
2008 New Yorker 24 Mar. 62/3 He continues to contrive ever more rococo and outlandish preparations.
c. Of music, literature, etc.: highly ornamented, extravagantly elaborate. Frequently mildly depreciative.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > [adjective] > style of composition
grandc1666
romantic1836
routinier1837
parodistic1845
rococo1868
virtuose1873
virtuosic1879
galant1884
polymorphous1890
monothematic1894
rococo1904
impressionistic1908
salon1914
gallant1925
athematic1935
non-thematic1946
minimalistic1947
stochastic1958
progressive1963
minimal1968
post-minimal1971
minimalist1977
1904 C. L. Graves Diversions Music-lover 23 It is showing the inevitable sign of an epoch of exhaustion,—a tendency to run riot in complexity of detail and rococo extravagance.
1941 Jazz Information Nov. 21/2 James P. [Johnson] made his first player piano rolls..as a ‘race’ feature alongside the rococo but immensely popular efforts of Phil Ohman.
1967 G. Steiner Lang. & Silence 28 This would..lead one to ask whether..the rococo virtuosity of Salinger is arguing an absurdly diminished and enervating view of human existence.
1984 Washington Post 13 Jan. we32/1 Peterson at his rococo best and Basie nailing down his many impressions with bluesy authority.
2003 Village Voice (N.Y.) 23–29 Apr. 57/4 Banville savors the opportunity to indulge the bloviating confessor's every rococo ejaculation and alliterative incantation.
3. Embroidery. Designating ribbon work in intricate and ornate floral designs, used for dresses, sachets, small folding screens, etc. Also: designating a form of cutwork outlined in buttonhole stitch, used for table linen, cushion covers, etc. (now historical and rare).
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the world > textiles and clothing > textiles > textile fabric or an article of textile fabric > sewn or ornamented textile fabric > [adjective] > embroidered > other
broched?1510
raised1548
set-stitched1761
chikan1858
Strasbourg1871
Richelieu1878
rococo1879
Holbein1881
Hardanger1893
Mountmellick1893
1879 Trewman's Exeter Flying Post 29 Oct. 6/4 Rococo embroidery is worked with ribbon used like a needleful of silk, but generally on satin.
1882 S. F. A. Caulfeild & B. C. Saward Dict. Needlework 426/1 Rococo Embroidery is used for table borders, fire screens, and cushion covers, and is made with écru linen foundations, ornamented with filoselles.
1883 Harper's Bazar 22 Dec. 823/2 (advt.) 3 patterns for Rococo work, 30c.
c1917 J. Fales Dressmaking x. 476 Their [sc. silk embroidery ribbons] chief use, however, is for the so-called ribbon or rococo embroidery.
1924 L. Harmuth Dict. Textiles 157/1 Rococo Embroidery, applique needlework having plain patterns buttonholed with bright colored floss silk over ecru linen or satin, the foundation is then cut away.
2006 D. van Niekerk Dreamscapes 7 Ribbon or Rococo embroidery is probably the easiest and most forgiving of all forms of embroidery.
II. Other uses.
4. Old-fashioned, outmoded. Now rare.
ΘΚΠ
the world > time > relative time > the past > oldness or ancientness > [adjective] > old-fashioned or antiquated
moth-frettenOE
antiquate?a1425
antique?1532
rusty1549
moth-eaten1551
musty1575
worm-eatenc1575
overyear1584
out of date1589
old-fashioned1592
out of date1592
worm-eat1597
old-fashion1599
ancient1601
outdated1616
out-of-fashion1623
over-aged1623
superannuateda1634
thorough-old1639
overdateda1641
trunk-hosea1643
antiquitated1645
antiquated1654
out-of-fashioned1671
unmodern1731
of the old school1749
auld-farrant1750
old-fangled1764
fossila1770
fogram1772
passé1775
unmodernized1775
oxidated1791
moss-covered1792
square-toeda1797
old-fashionable1807
pigtail1817
behind the times1826
slow1827
fossilized1828
rococo1836
antiquish1838
old-timey1850
out of season1850
moss-grown1851
old style1858
antiqued1859
pigtaily1859
prehistoric1859
backdated1862
played1864
fossiled1866
bygone1869
mossy-backed1870
old-worldly1878
past-time1889
outmoded1896
dated1900
brontosaurian1909
antiquey1926
horse-and-buggy1926
vintage1928
Neolithic1934
time-warped1938
demoded1941
steam age1941
hairy1946
old school1946
rinky-dink1946
time warp1954
Palaeolithic1957
retardataire1958
throwback1968
wally1969
antwacky1975
1836 F. Trollope Paris & Parisians I. iii. 11 I have already stated who it is that form the rococo class [sc. anyone considered old-fashioned].
1839 Lady Lytton Cheveley (ed. 2) I. xii. 278 [He] had even been sufficiently ‘rococo’ to assert boldly that he did not think Victor Hugo so great a genius as Racine.
1843 E. S. Wortley Moonshine i. i. 18 Lady Juliana, believe me when I say I never do such a rococo thing as to form an opinion; we have left off that in France now.
1859 G. A. Sala Twice round Clock (1861) 300 I do not even know the names of the fashionable dances of the day, and very probably those to which I have alluded are by this time old fashioned, out of date, rococo, and pigtaily.
1870 M. Arnold in Pall Mall Gaz. 29 Nov. 3/2 We heard the honest German soldiers Hoch-ing, hurrahing, and God-blessing in their true-hearted but somewhat rococo manner.
1902 H. L. Wilson Spenders ix. 92 She is rather a beauty, you'll find;..a bit rococo in manner, I suspect.
1911 J. Galsworthy Patrician i. xii. 87 She was woman of the world enough, too, to know that ‘birth’ was not what it had been in her young days, that even money was rather rococo.
B. n.
1.
a. Frequently with capital initial. The rococo style of art, architecture, decoration, etc.; the period during which this style predominated. Usually with the.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > ornamental art and craft > [noun] > specific style
rocaille1810
rococo1835
serio-grotesque1858
barocco1877
baroque1879
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > 17th century-mid 19th century > [noun] > rococo
rococo1835
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > architecture > style of architecture > [noun] > other styles
transition1730
pasticcio1750
symmetrophobia1809
rococo1835
flamboyantism1846
collegiate Gothic1851
vernacular architecture1857
Neo-Grec1867
modernism1879
wedding-cake1879
Queen Anne1883
Colonial Revival1889
Chicago school1893
Dutch colonial1894
English colonial1894
monumentalism1897
vernacular1910
international style1911
Churrigueresque1913
postmodernism1914
prairie style1914
rationalism1918
lavatory style1919
functionalism1924
Mudéjar1927
façadism1933
open plan1938
Wrenaissance1942
pseudo1945
brutalism1953
open planning1958
neo-Liberty1959
Queen Annery1966
Jugendstil1967
moderne1968
strip architecture1976
high-tech1978
1835 Lady Morgan Princess I. viii. 250 The architraves of the enormous doors were redundant in the roccoco of the seventeenth century.
1840 Civil Engineer & Architect's Jrnl. 3 94/1 The type of the ancient church was replaced by the absurdities of the rococo.
1881 H. James Portrait of Lady II. xvii. 198 Miss Osmond, indeed, in the bloom of her juvenility, had a touch of the rococo.
1884 J. A. Symonds Shakspere's Predecessors xiv. 563 The whole passage illustrates the rococo of the English Renaissance which Marlowe made fashionable.
1915 Amer. Architect 6 Jan. 23/2 The flamboyant vulgarity that dominated design during the Rococo of Louis XIV.
1965 Listener 3 June 830/1 The drawing in nearly all Monticelli's pictures is reminiscent of the rococo.
2005 J. Pile Hist. Interior Design (ed. 2) 178/2 It is an elegant example of the Rococo, both simple and rich.
b. An example of the rococo style; a style or aesthetic having rococo characteristics.
ΚΠ
1873 A. H. Clough tr. J. Burckhardt Cicerone vi. 178/1 Girolamo Mazzola sometimes combines a touch of antique naïveté with Correggio's manner and that of the Roman school, and produces a wonderful rococo.
1949 W. B. Honey European Ceramic Art 42 Zurich porcelain at its best shows a belated Rococo and a rare beauty of colour.
1978 V. Cronin Catherine xx. 236 The most opulent of its rooms Catherine decorated in a German rococo so rich it becomes three-dimensional.
1980 New Grove Dict. Music XVI. 86/1 The concept of a Rococo in music has never been seriously elaborated.
1995 T. D. Kaufmann Court, Cloister & City xvi. 394 A distinctive rococo that Frederick patronized during his early years.
2. A piece of rococo art, decoration, etc. Now rare.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > ornamental art and craft > [noun] > specific style > work in specific style
babooneryc1400
babery?c1450
fretizing1626
Japan17..
rococo1843
Japanesery1885
1843 tr. J. G. Kohl Russia & Russians, 1842 II. xxi. 27 They have furniture on show and sale to the amount of some millions—..sofas, divans, bergères, couchettes, rococos.
1876 Academy 30 Dec. 623 These Scenes are rococoes sufficiently out of the common track to be worthy of notice.
1899 W. Churchill Richard Carvel xxviii. 265 At least a half-dozen tall mirrors, framed in rococos, were placed about.
1906 H. W. Fischer Private Lives William II. & his Consort iii. 40 The Kaiser allows his wife to keep for herself all bibelots and curios, magnificent Boules and quaint rococos, which past generations of royal Hohenzollerns have boarded up.
Compounds
rococo stitch n. Embroidery a canvas stitch formed with bundles of four straight stitches crossed with short slanting stitches, worked in diagonal lines.
ΘΚΠ
the world > textiles and clothing > textiles > textile fabric or an article of textile fabric > sewn or ornamented textile fabric > [noun] > embroidery or ornamental sewing > done in specific stitches
setwork1503
chain-stitch1598
true-stitch1606
cross-stitchc1710
tent-work1798
faggoting1868
plumage work1886
pin stitching1900
pattern darning1906
rococo stitch1906
1906 Mrs. A. H. Christie Embroidery & Tapestry Weaving vii. 162 The stitch illustrated in fig. 87 is known as rococo stitch.
1963 Times 9 Mar. 11/5 Others again are worked in formal diapers of rococo stitch.
1996 M. Jenkins House & Garden Samplers 48/2 French stitch..is half of a rococo stitch and can be used for a variety of textural effects.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2010; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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adj.n.1830