seedy

American  

[see-dee] / ˈsi di /

adjective

seedier, seediest

1. abounding in seed.

2. containing many seeds, as a piece of fruit.

3. gone to seed; bearing seeds.

4. poorly kept; run-down; shabby.

5. shabbily dressed; unkempt.

   a seedy old tramp.

6. physically run-down; under the weather.

   He felt a bit seedy after his operation.

7. somewhat disreputable; degraded.

   a seedy hotel.

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seedy British  

/ ˈsiːdɪ /

adjective

1. shabby or unseemly in appearance

   seedy clothes

2. (of a plant) at the stage of producing seeds

3. informal not physically fit; sickly

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Other Word Forms

• seedily adverb
• seediness noun

Etymology

Origin of seedy

First recorded in 1565–75; seed + -y ¹

Example Sentences

After spending several months in two seedy rentals, the McIntires pulled the trigger on a longtime fantasy.

From Los Angeles Times

Being furious now doesn't erase the initial choice, and each seedy email makes it seem a bigger and bigger mistake.

From BBC

By calling his museum’s large theater the Moral Lecture Room, he hoped to distance his venue from the seedy theaters of the time.

From The Wall Street Journal

He drank tall glasses of orange juice in seedy dives as he infiltrated an underworld of bank-robbing clowns and bird-obsessed mobsters.

From Salon

However, Paperny explained that Combs may well struggle to secure a buyer who was willing to pay the $61.5 million asking price—particularly given the property’s seedy connection to the rapper’s trial.

From MarketWatch

Related Words

• crummy
• decaying
• decrepit
• dingy
• grubby
• scruffy
• shabby
• sleazy
• squalid
• tacky