tawdry

[taw-dree]

adjective

tawdrier, tawdriest 

1. (of finery, trappings, etc.) gaudy; showy and cheap.

   Synonyms: meretricious, flashy
   Antonyms: elegant

2. low or mean; base.

   tawdry motives.

noun

1. cheap, gaudy apparel.

tawdry

/ ˈtɔːdrɪ /

adjective

1. cheap, showy, and of poor quality

   tawdry jewellery

Other Word Forms

• tawdrily adverb
• tawdriness noun
• untawdry adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of tawdry¹

1605–15; short for ( Sain ) t Audrey lace, i.e., neck lace bought at St. Audrey's Fair in Ely, England; so called after St. Audrey ( Old English Aethelthrȳth, died 679), Northumbrian queen and patron saint of Ely, who, according to tradition, died of a throat tumor which she considered just punishment of her youthful liking for neck laces

Word History and Origins

Origin of tawdry¹

C16 tawdry lace, shortened and altered from Seynt Audries lace, finery sold at the fair of St Audrey (Etheldrida), 7th-century queen of Northumbria and patron saint of Ely, Cambridgeshire

Example Sentences

Against this enclave’s polished stone walls and bannisters, Lee looks every ragged inch of the tawdry menace the politicians and businessmen he squares off against expect him to be.

Read more on Salon

He called that meeting "the most vomit-inducing episode in all the tawdry history of international diplomacy".

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The writer Morrow Mayo seldom minced words, especially when his subject was the gaudy, tawdry city where he made his home in the 1920s and 1930s.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“She hasn’t turned sleazy, hasn’t become part of a ‘12-fanged monster’ determined to do nothing but titillate and trash up the airwaves with its tawdry yarns,” staff writer Steve Weinstein wrote.

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Her last two years were obviously very difficult, what with drugs, depression and dermatomyositis, all of which come across as tawdry in “Maria.”

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Related Words

• sleazy 
• tacky 
• vulgar