gaud en · NOUN · etymology 1
Pronunciation
- (Received-Pronunciation) audio
- /ɡɑd/ (cot-caught-merger)
- /ɡɔd/ (General-American)
- /ɡɔːd/ (Received-Pronunciation)
Etymology
From Middle English gaude, gawde (“jest, prank, trick; ornamental bead in a rosary, trinket, bauble”). Compare Middle English gaudy, gaudee, of the same meaning.
Meanings
-
A cheap showy trinket
Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer.
1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Part I, episode 1:Dalmeny lent me red tabs, Evans his brass hat; so that I had the gauds of my appointment in the ceremony of the Jaffa gate, which for me was the supreme moment of the war.
1922, T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (published 1926)But I am heart-set on you, and to win you there is not a precious stone I would leave unturned. Conceive a parure all of white stones—diamonds, white sapphires, white topazes, tourmalines. Another, of rubies and amethysts, set in gold filigree. Rings that once were poison-combs on Florentine fingers. Red roses for your hair—every petal a hollowed ruby. Amulets and ape-buckles, zones and fillets. Aye! know that you would be weeping for wonder before you had seen a tithe of these gauds.
1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, published 1912, →OCLC:an idle gaud
c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:A Libyan longing took us, and we would have chosen, if we could, to bear a strand of grotesque beads, or a handful of brazen gauds, and traffic them for some sable maid with crisp locks, whom, uncoffling from the captive train beside the desert, we should make to do our general housework forever, through the right of lawful purchase.
1912, The World's Wit and Humor, page 176:
- (obsolete) trick; jest; sport
- (obsolete) deceit; fraud; artifice
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| gauds | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Deriveds
gaudless · gaudish · begaud · gaudful
Relateds
Translations (5)
cs tretka (a cheap showy trinket) · ru безделу́шка (a cheap showy trinket) · bg дрънкулка (a cheap showy trinket) · ka ზიზილ-პიპილები (a cheap showy trinket) · ka სამშვენისი (a cheap showy trinket)