gaud
/ɡɔd/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.85 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "an idle gaud"
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
- "Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer."
- "Nicely gauded cheeks."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: gaude
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɡɔd/
- British English: /ɡɔːd/