T HE WORD baroque has in recent years become a part of our vocabulary,' though its use still provokes hostile reactions for various reasons, some good, some bad. But words, once they have entered a language, are not easily made to disappear, and it is idle to suppose that we can suppress this one merely because we may not happen to like it. The purpose of this article, semantic rather than historical in character, is to deal first with the objections to the term (leaving aside those which are based on a dislike of novelty of any kind) and then, on the positive side, to try to isolate the meaning which appears most helpful for critical and historical studies.2