Do we say gaudy or gawdy

gaudy 459 occurrences

He says, "One time I was out cutting timber over in Inchy, and about eight o'clock one morning when I got there I saw a girl picking nuts, with her hair hanging down over her shoulders, brown hair, and she had a good, clean face, and she was tall and nothing on her head, and her dress no way gaudy but simple, and when she felt me coming she gathered herself up and was gone as if the earth had swallowed her up.

Thus one critic speaks of his "splendid and imperishable excellence of sincerity and strength"; another of his "gaudy charlatanry, blare of brass, and big bow-wowishness."

Fairies and Elves, Satyrs and Forsters, Centaurs and Lapithae, played their parts in these gaudy spectacles with every conventional requirement of shape, costume, and behavior point-de-vice, and were supplied by the poet, to whom the letter-press of the show had been confided, with language and a plot, both pregnant with more than Platonic morality.

He has been tempted, too, by orders from London shops for gaudy birdshumming-birds especially.

On the walls there was a lamentable medley of landscapes in dim and gaudy colors, painted in Canton or Hongkong, mingled with tawdry chromos of odalisks, half-nude women, effeminate lithographs of Christ, the deaths of the just and of the sinnersmade by Jewish houses in Germany to be sold in the Catholic countries.

Dr. Grayson then rose and said that since Tiny was too modest to appear in public herself, he would bring out her most cherished possession to respond to the encore, and held up the gaudy blanket that Katherine and Oh-Pshaw had already made merry over in the tent, explaining that Tiny always chose quiet, dull colors to match her retiring nature.

Gaudy chandeliers of coloured glass hang from the roof of a marble mosque, and though the marble may crack and no one give heed to it, the glass chandeliers will be carefully swathed in holland bags.

"The Douglas' form, like ruin'd tower, Seem'd o'er the gaudy scene to lower: His locks and beard in silver grew; His eyebrows kept their sable hue.

while he builds, the gaudy vassals come, And crowd with sudden wealth the rising dome; The price of boroughs and of souls restore; And raise his treasures higher than before.

No coronets had sheno chains of gold No gaudy sandalsno rich girdles rare That caught the eye more than the person did.

One of the chuprassis, his gaudy uniform laid aside, and clad in a fragment of cotton, is sluicing himself with water and praying audibly.

May he turn round some day, and deliberately pulling out all borrowed feathers, look at himself honestly and boldly in the glass, and we will warrant him, on the strength of the least gaudy, and as yet unpraised passages in his poems, that he will find himself after all more eagle than daw, and quite well plumed enough by nature to fly at a higher, because for him a more natural, pitch than he has yet done.

Macaulay himself declared that it was "overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful argument"; but it secured his literary reputation and determined much of his career.

Occasionally the girls were left to choose between a book and a work-bag, and although the bag might be gaudy and tempting, they invariably took the book.

I resisted all their importunities, and passed on through the Champs Elysées, or a dusty road through a grove, intersected with ill-formed paths, with a few gaudy cafés bearing pompous inscriptionsfor Voltaire has made the French too fond of nomenclature to say with our Shakspeare, "what's in a name?"

Thus the slow ox would gaudy trappings claim; The sprightly horse would plough.

Far better to leave the walls of our churches to the colouring that time gives than to wash or paint them with the tints that seem to be inevitably either gaudy or dismal.

I wanted something gaudy that would make me feel cheerful when I woke in the morning; but I also had another idea in my mind.

Cake bowed to Mr. Meier, a fat, gaudy gentleman with thick, hairy hands.

They had little also that he wantedhe shopped for a week before he found a gaudy pitcher and basin and a strip of matting for his floor.

The failing of vanity extends throughout all classes: the poor have but little time to bestow on their persons, and yet in the selection of their clothes we find they prefer such as are of a flaring and gaudy colour.

" I say that, too, with the addition that in real life, also, such is the fashion in which we are compelled to deal with all happenings and with all our fellows, whether they wear or lack the gaudy name of heroism.

Deftly, swiftly, he unrolled the gaudy blanket, spread it thin upon the ground, covered it completely with his body.

His gaudy riding blouse and cap reposed on a lounge in one corner.

Gaudy night, by Dorothy L. Sayers.

gawdy 19 occurrences

In 1589, on the marriage of his heir with Judge Gawdy's daughter, "the Lord Chancellor danced the measures at the solemnity, and left his gown on the chair, saying Lie there, Chancellor."

But O they're vain and idly gawdy; How much unlike that graceful mien And manly look of my highland laddie.

The needless pomp of gawdy furniture.

No, Leidenberch: The narrowest dore of death I would work through first Ere I turne Slave to stick their gawdy triumphes.

To endeavour it, is to build a gawdy Structure without any Foundation; or, if I may be allow'd the Expression, to work a rich Embroidery upon a Cobweb.

What age can compete, In avoiding the gawdy, achieving the neat, With forty to fifty?

Whether this politeness observed at plays may be owing to their clime, their complexion, or their government, is of no great consequence; but if it is to be acquired, methinks it is a pity our accomplished countrymen, who every year import so much of this nation's gawdy garniture, should not, in this long course of our commerce with them, have brought over a little of their theatrical good-breeding too.

Where desolating storms, and vengeful fates, The gawdy scene deface; Ambition in its widest havock trace Thro' widow'd cities, and unpeopl'd states.

Not Heaven's fair bow can equal thee, In all its gawdy drapery: Thou first essay of light, and pledge of day!

To endeavour it, is to build a gawdy Structure without any Foundation; or, if I may be allow'd the Expression, to work a rich Embroidery upon a Cobweb.

Far as the Eye can reach, the gawdy Train, A bright Procession, shines along the Plain.

No, no, Father, though I could be well pleas'd to have my Husband a Courtier, and a Scholar, young, and valiant; these are but gawdy nothings, if there be not something to make a substance.

The Seasons of the year find no fond Parents, yet some are arm'd in silver Ice that glisters, and some in gawdy Green come in like Masquers.

I'll make my way, and therefore quickly leave me, or I'll force you; and having first torn off your flanting feathers, I'll trample on 'em; and if that cannot teach you to quit my house, I'll kick ye out of my gates; you gawdy Glow-worms, carrying seeming fire, yet have no heat within ye. Cow.

Under heavens spangled Canopy, or banquet My guests and Gossips with imagin'd Nectar; Pure Orleans would doe better; no, no, father, Though I could be well pleas'd to have my husband A Courtier, and a Schollar, young, and valiant, These are but gawdy nothings, if there be not Something to make a substance.

The seasons of the yeare find no fond parents, Yet some are arm'd in silver Ice that glisters, And sovne in gawdy green come in like Masquers: The Silk-worme spines her owne suit and her lodging, And has no aid nor partner in her labours: Why should we care for any thing but knowledge, Or look upon the world but to contemne it?

And I am happy, that I was the Surgeon That did apply those burning corrosives That render you already sensible O th' danger you were plung'd in, in teaching you, And by a faire gradation, how far[r]e, And with what curious respect and care The peace and credit of a man within, (Which you nere thought till now) should be preferr'd Before a gawdy outside; pray you fix here, For so farre I go with you.

(ib.) Parthenia, healed from the poison, returns her right Beauty new shining like the Queen of night, Appearing fresher after she did shroud Her gawdy forehead in a pitchy cloud: Love triumphs in her eyes; (III, end.) and the pastoral poetess Sapho promises an 'epithalamy' for the bridal pair,

Hickes died in 1715, and the following year the great and hugely learned Thomas Brett became a Bishop, as also did Henry Gawdy.

Do we say   gaudy   or  gawdy