WORD of the day

rococo \roh-kuh-KOH\, adjective:

1. Ornate or florid in speech, writing, or general style.
2. Pertaining to a style of painting developed simultaneously with the rococo in architecture and decoration, characterized chiefly by smallness of scale, delicacy of color, freedom of brushwork, and the selection of playful subjects as thematic material.

noun:
1. A style of architecture and decoration, originating in France about 1720, evolved from Baroque types and distinguished by its elegant refinement in using different materials for a delicate overall effect and by its ornament of shellwork, foliage, etc.

adjective:
1. In the manner of, or suggested by rococo architecture, decoration, or music or the general atmosphere and spirit of the rococo.
Whereas the author's early works, like "Dead Babies" and "The Rachel Papers," were animated by a satiric gift for social observation and a deliciously black wit, this novel tackles the same themes - sex and identity and coming of age - with weary determination, and lacquers them all with pompous, inanely rococo meditations about the nature of art and truth.
-- Michiko Kakutani, "The Sexual Revolution Dissected", New York Times, May 2010
"Is this some sort of grandiose and rococo midlife crisis? Are you that afraid of getting old? Aging is the most natural thing in the world." He snorted.
-- Tom Robbins, Jitterbug perfume

Rococo originates as a humorous alteration of the French rocaille, "shellwork, pebble-work", refering to the excessive use of shell designs in the style of various French monarchs.