Dictionary

peacockery en · NOUN

Etymology

From peacock + -ery; the (male) peacock puts on showy displays of his tailfeathers.

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) Gaudy showiness; ostentation.
   • Designs ranged from elaborate peacockery to sexy sheaths of black sequins, to puffs of lace topped with sparkling rhinestones. 1946 November 11, “The New Elegance”, in Time:
   • […] he was so deeply struck with the shock of this revelation that he actually forgot himself and his own peacockery. 1880, Walter Besant, James Rice, chapter XXIV, in The Seamy Side, London: Chatto & Windus, published 1888, page 280:
   • Shoots break from the earth, leaves unfurl auspiciously and peacockeries of colour—dashing golds, purples and whites—illuminate the grounds. 1998, Des Kennedy, An Ecology of Enchantment, page 64:
   • I have always thought of the word “macho” in terms of what it means in Mexico—a particularly ugly peacockery, a conspicuous cruelty to women and animals and children, a gratuitous viciousness. 2002, Jim Harrison, Robert J. DeMott, Conversations with Jim Harrison, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, page 75:

Forms

Relateds

finery · cock of the roost · resplendence · cock of the walk