These words refer to tasteless displays of overdone finery or decoration, or to brazen, flaunting behaviour. Of these words, gaudy is the least negative in tone, but still points to excessive use of decoration or to any sort of vividness that approaches vulgarity: gaudy make-up; the gaudy colours of the amusement park. The word may not imply disapproval at all in some circumstances, suggesting a wild or irresistible abandonment to spectacular designs: the gaudy lights of the carnival; the gaudy peacock. Flashy is an informal substitute for gaudy, referring to anything deliberately chosen out of exuberantly vulgar ostentation: flashy consume jewellery; a taste for flashy clothes that caused giggling fits among the other girls in the office. This word, too, can function without necessarily implying disapproval: a flashy sports car that was the envy of the whole neighbourhood; flashy beachwear designed for uninhibited summer fun.

With garish , the emphasis is wholly one extremely distasteful ostentation and more especially on a chaotic aesthetic effect resulting from the disharmony of elements in a total design: green eye shadow that would have been thought garish in a bordello; the garish combination of striped pants, plaid jacket and a clashing print shirt.

Meretricious and tawdry both emphasize decoration that is made of cheap or worthless materials. With meretricious , the stress is on overuse, especially of spurious or trashy gimmicks: meretricious gewgaws that made the living-room look like a junk shop. The word has a special use to refer to aesthetic dishonesty or propaganda appeals: novels that make meretricious use of sex to boost sales; meretricious campaign promises. Tawdry may, most simply, suggest cheapness combined with showiness in taste: a tawdry plastic tablecloth; a tawdry flowered sofa already beginning to fall apart. Used less concretely, the word may suggest unsavouriness or such an extreme abasement of taste as to be degraded and degrading: tawdry hotel lounges where soldiers on leave could find girls on the loose; tawdry magazines that peddle filth, scandal and sleazy amusement to eager audiences.