a. and sb. [a. F. baroque adj., ad. Pg. barroco, Sp. barrueco, rough or imperfect pearl; of uncertain origin.
In earlier Sp., Minsheu, 1623, has ‘berruca, berruga a wart’ (evidently L. verruca), also ‘berrueco a hillocke, a wart,’ ‘berrocál a place full of hillocks’; mod. Pg. has besides barroco ‘rough or Scotch pearl,’ barroca ‘a gutter made by a water-flood’ Vieyra, ‘uneven stony ground’ (Diez), which native etymologists refer to Arab. burāq, pl. of burqah ‘hard earth mixed with stones, pebbly place’ (Freytag). Diez has also suggested confusion of the ending with roca, rocca rock: the forms in o, ue, cannot come directly from L. verrūca. Littré’s suggestion that the word is identical with the logical term baroko seems to rest on no historical evidence; yet form-association with that may have influenced the later Eng. and Fr. use.]
A. adj. Irregularly shaped; whimsical, grotesque, odd. (‘Originally a jeweller’s term, soon much extended in sense.’ Brachet.)
1851. Sir F. Palgrave, Norm. & Eng., I. Introd. 44. Which rendered every name and thing connected with the mediæval periods baroque or absurd.
1867. Howells, Ital. Journ., 77. The building … coldly classic or frantically baroque.
1882. A. B. Hope, Brandreths, I. i. 3. Studded with baroque pearls.
B. sb. Grotesque or whimsical ornamentation.
1879. Baring-Gould, Germany, II. 358. French baroque was too much under Palladian influence to be other than formal.
