All 7 Uses of

gaudy

in

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, 'stead of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was interested.†
Chpt 14

Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock, made out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy.†
Chpt 17 *

I reckoned the poor king was in for a gaudy time of it with the audience, but nothing of the sort; pretty soon he crawls out from under the wigwam, and says: "Well, how'd the old thing pan out this time, duke?"†
Chpt 23

There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll smouch it, and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it, too.†
Chpt 38

…snakes and spiders and things, on top of all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and journals, and things, which made it more trouble and worry and responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that Tom most lost all patience with him; and said he was just loadened down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make a name for himself, and yet he didn't know enough to appreciate them, and they was just about wasted on him.†
Chpt 38

Uses with a very rare meaning:

And, then, there he was, slim and handsome, and dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw, and he lit into that horse with his whip and made him fairly hum—and finally skipped off, and made his bow and danced off to the dressing-room, and everybody just a-howling with pleasure and astonishment.
Chpt 22 *

gaudiest = tastelessly showy

Definitions:

(meaning too rare to warrant focus)
Much more rarely, in classic literature gaudy can refer to something that is extravagantly showy without the implication that it is tasteless. Even more rarely, it can refer to a celebratory feast held by a college.