The fanciful swings away from the real or the ordinary lightly and pleasantly, the fantastic extravagantly, the grotesque ridiculously. A fanciful arrangement of objects is commonly pleasing, a fantastic arrangement is striking, a grotesque arrangement is laughable.

J. C. Fernald, English Synonyms and Antonyms (1914)

Example sentences

strange Press the red button if something strange happens.
ridiculous That's the most ridiculous movie I have ever seen.
bizarre Sami imposed bizarre dietary restrictions on Layla.
absurd Do you really not see how absurd your question is?
ugly Between you and me, the fat ugly man is on a diet.
hideous Some things get more hideous, when you clean them.

Popularity over time

Word	1850 → 2019	Trend
grotesque		steady
strange		rising
ridiculous		rising
bizarre		rising
absurd		steady
ugly		rising

Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.

By length

3 letters: odd¹
4 letters: wild¹, ugly², rude¹
5 letters: gross¹, queer¹, droll¹, antic²
6 letters: absurd²
7 letters: strange¹, bizarre², hideous³, baroque²
8 letters: peculiar³, fanciful³, freakish
9 letters: distorted³, unnatural⁴, appalling³, monstrous², ludicrous³, whimsical³, shapeless²
10 letters: ridiculous⁴, outrageous³, outlandish³
11 letters: extravagant⁴, fantastical
12 letters: preposterous⁴

The small number after each word is its number of syllables (ugly² = 2 syllables).

In other languages

Français: grotesque