adjective
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showing the least pleasant aspect; sordid
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(esp of the inner side of a garment) showing many seams
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of seamy
1595–1605; seam + -y 1; in transferred senses alluding to the unpresentable appearance of the inside of a garment, i.e., where the seams show
Explanation
Things that are seamy have lost all morality. Your mother wouldn't approve of you going to a seamy video arcade, especially not if you went with a group of seamy people. The seamy people at that video arcade could also be called "sleazy" or “a bad crowd.” A house that’s falling down could also be seamy, and so is the bar on the corner where not even your uncle will go. If you find yourself in a seamy situation, the best thing to do is get out before you find yourself turning seamy, corrupted by the seamy folk lurking about.
Vocabulary lists containing seamy
Othello
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Talk Like Shakespeare Day, List 7
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The Big Short
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It’s huge, brazen and entangled with the seamy politics of migration and assimilation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
Working with cinematographer Robby Müller, Friedkin puts a Los Angeles on screen that is equal parts glamorous and seamy, where even the palm tree in the movie’s logo looks like a gunshot wound.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2023
The opening scene, a “Blade Runner” homage that leads into a dark, seamy version of the typical “Star Wars” cantina, is a witty example of the show’s method.
From New York Times ● Sep. 20, 2022
"The Dry" takes this juicy setup and uses it to examine the seamy underbelly of this small farming community.
From Salon ● May 19, 2021
And though it would certainly add color to my story to present a descent into a seamy underworld, I can’t fail to mention that the North Beach Strip is only a few blocks long.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
A former private detective, Hammett grounded his narrative in a corrupt Montana mining town, replacing the cozy murders of traditional whodunits with a seamier view of vice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
“Even with Nixon and Reagan, who trafficked in the seamier side of politics, there was some acknowledgement of the need for racial equality.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2020
“Hightown” captures a seamier side of life in this vacation paradise.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 16, 2020
Actresses keep fleeing the genteel personas the show saddled them with, finding refuge in seamier characters.
From New York Times ● May 19, 2017
My trips were limited, directed, and avoided the seamier side.
From The Huddlers by Gault, William Campbell
Those places can harbor the ugliest feelings and seamiest beliefs, yet go undetected if a person speaks and acts otherwise.
From Washington Times ● May 18, 2016
But he imbues even his most marginalized characters with strength, dignity and even wisdom as they boldly navigate the Dream Factory’s seamiest underbelly on their own self-possessed terms.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 15, 2015
By The seamiest affair in Washington this summer, one of the seamiest in many summers, is the aborted appointment of Brett McGurk as ambassador to Iraq—but not for the reason many think.
From Slate ● Jun. 20, 2012
But Season 3 of “The Wire” proved that it was also possible to find suspense and meaning in the seamiest margins of city council meetings and municipal elections.
From New York Times ● Oct. 20, 2011
To inquire why the bare mention of the mother of a man's wife should excite merriment is to find oneself instantly deep in sociology—and in some of its seamiest strata too.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 by Seaman, Owen, Sir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
