Gothic
/ˈɡɒθɪk
/adjective
1Relating to the Goths or their extinct language, which belongs to the East Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. It provides the earliest manuscript evidence of any Germanic language (4th-6th centuries ad).With the extinction of the Ostrogothic language, the longest-surviving Gothic people finally disappeared from history....
- He translated the Bible from Greek into the Gothic language.
- The Germans consolidated in the Po Valley, along the so-called Gothic line, and fought a hard battle through the autumn and winter months.
2Of or in the style of architecture prevalent in western Europe in the 12th-16th centuries (and revived in the mid 18th to early 20th centuries), characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses, together with large windows and elaborate tracery. English Gothic architecture is divided into Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular.About 1120 arches began to be made pointed, and from this grew the style known as Early English, the first phase of Gothic architecture in England....
- Ramsey reminds us of the increased importance and status of named architects at this time, a process initiated during the earlier periods of Gothic architecture.
- Nor were these all soaring, vertical lancets that ended, Gothic style, in pointed arches.
3 (also pseudo-archaic Gothick) Belonging to or redolent of the Dark Ages; portentously gloomy or horrifying: 19th-century Gothic horror...
- Although William Beckford wrote a Gothick romance as reckless and immoderate as himself, his life of epic prodigality would arrest attention had he not written a single line.
- The Castle of Otranto was an early example of the Gothick horror novel and Historic Doubts on Richard III fathered a minor academic industry.
- It's not a genre like, say, science fiction or Gothic horror or romance.
4(Of lettering) of or derived from the angular style of handwriting with broad vertical downstrokes used in western Europe from the 13th century, including Fraktur and black-letter typefaces.It comes in two different typographic styles, Gothic typeface and graffiti style, both of which are popular in hip-hop on an international scale....
- A band of gilded silver inscribed with Gothic lettering that reads BRACHIUM S. PHILIPPI encircles the wrist of the arm relic.
- In Europe, the Gothic script of some manuscripts and of early printing (Gutenberg's, for example) enjoys a similar life as pattern alone.
5 (gothic) Relating to goths or goth music.If shivers down your spine are what you're after, this is prog gothic ethnoforgery electronica at its finest....
- I kind of thought it sounded gothic or it had some kind of black metal connotation to it.
- What do Rugby league, gothic music, mouldy posters and blogging have in common?
noun [mass noun]
1The extinct language of the Goths.Goths had their own Arian churches (as can still be seen in Ravenna), and surviving documents written by clerics show that Gothic was spoken there....
- Especially interesting is the Crimean Gothic word for ‘egg’.
2The Gothic style of architecture.Here, I stood face-to-face with magnificent structures in 17 architectural styles, including Gothic, renaissance and classical....
- After much discussion, we looked at different door styles from different architectural styles such as Gothic, Art Deco, Colonial and Modern.
- She also gave an account of the Russian architecture - Baroque, Gothic, Art Nouveau.
3Gothic type.‘Erich’ became ‘Eric’ and he now wrote in Latin characters instead of Gothic....
- It is also written in the new humanist script: this replaced medieval Gothic script and, in its rejection of Gothic's abbreviations and fusion of letters, made text more accessible.
Derivatives
Gothically
/ adverb ...- Pascal Humbert and Jean-Yves Tola spend most of their time as two-thirds of the Gothically charged, alt-country, Denver based band 16 Horsepower.
- The golden ceiling arched Gothically towards the heavens.
- A reddish light shone out from Gothically arched windows above, illuminating the alley with a scarlet tinge.
Gothicism
/ noun ...- The nearest linear example to the style employed by lead singer/songwriter Colin Meloy is the literary Gothicism typified by Victorian authors such as Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters.
- I guess this time around the half-assed attempts at electronicism beat out the half-assed attempts at Gothicism, but not by a whole lot, and I wouldn't go so far as to say I like Smith's intentions here.
- Accordingly, as with the ludicrous fake Gothicism of the title, it proved a classic case of Nicholas Hentz's just missing the boat, with the author mercifully consigned to obscurity.
Gothicize
/ (also Gothicise) verb ...- This honour falls to Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Oxford, who bought a former coachman's cottage at Strawberry Hill and gradually Gothicised it between 1753 and 1776.
- A few years earlier he had submitted a similar design for the new Foreign Office in Whitehall, only to have it vetoed by Palmerston on the grounds that Scott would ‘Gothicize the whole country’ if given his head.
- In 1747 he purchased a villa at Twickenham, Strawberry Hill, and proceeded to Gothicize it using a combination of accurate research and his own Rococo whimsy.
Origin
From French gothique or late Latin gothicus, from Gothi (see Goth). It was used in the 17th and 18th cents to mean 'not classical' (i.e. not Greek or Roman), and hence to refer to medieval architecture which did not follow classical models (Gothic (sense 2 of the adjective)) and a typeface based on medieval handwriting (Gothic (sense 4 of the adjective)).
Rhymes
- neuroethology
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