Showy means bright and eye-catching in a way that lacks taste. A showy display, showy jewellery, showy and loud.
It is a criticism of a person and a plain description of a plant, since gardening catalogues use showy as praise for large bright flowers. Of behaviour it says somebody is playing to an audience.
1adjectiveshowyBright and eye-catching in a way that lacks taste.
“She wore a showy pink hat covered in feathers and fake jewels.”
showy is a quality.
From the noun show plus -y, the ending that turns a noun into an adjective meaning full of it.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)kewh₁-
Middle English
schewen
English
show
English, today
showy
From show + y. show comes from Middle English schewen. From Middle English schewen, from Old English scēawian (“to look, look at, exhibit, display”), from Proto-West Germanic skauwōn, from Proto-Germanic skawwōną (“to look, see”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)kewh₁- (“to heed, look, feel, take note of”); see haw, gaum, caveat, caution. Cognate with Scots shaw (“to show”), Dutch schouwen (“to inspect, view”), German schauen (“to see, behold”), Danish skue (“to behold”). Related to sheen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA