sleazy
Americanadjective
-
sleazier,
comparative
-
sleaziest
superlative
-
contemptibly low, mean, or disreputable.
sleazy politics.
-
squalid; sordid; filthy; dilapidated.
a sleazy hotel.
-
thin or poor in texture, as a fabric; cheap; flimsy.
a sleazy dress;
a sleazy excuse.
adjective
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sordid; disreputable
a sleazy nightclub
-
thin or flimsy, as cloth
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of sleazy
First recorded in 1635–45 sleazy for def. 3; of obscure origin; probably unrelated to Silesia; first recorded in 1941 sleazy for defs. 1, 2; perhaps a distinct word
Explanation
Something that is sleazy is low and nasty. It’s a perfect word to describe characters like the sleazy door-to-door con men who cheat old ladies into selling them their jewelry at a deep discount. Sleazy originally meant flimsy, but nowadays it’s only used to describe morally degraded people or places. Usually it refers to sexual behavior, but it is often associated with people trying to swindle others as well. It’s not as bad as perverse or criminal, which suggest that a line has been crossed. But sleazy people make you feel uncomfortable, for sure.
Vocabulary lists containing sleazy
Stargirl
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Speak
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Just Mercy
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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:
“They couldn’t understand why we were playing in such a sleazy place,” Busby later said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
Wannabeher, meanwhile, is a sticky, sleazy track about being so completely besotted with someone that you start to blur the boundaries between where your personality ends and theirs begins.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
Sports bettors losing money shouldn’t be surprising—where else would you expect sportsbook profits to come from?—but the manner of our collective losses seems both sleazy and unsustainable.
From Slate ● Apr. 28, 2026
Like Li, he was upset by the "ugly" portrayal of his likeness as a "sleazy" antagonist in the show.
From Barron's ● Apr. 24, 2026
I thought again about how sleazy Myers had been during the trial.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
What makes this whole affair even sleazier is that it’s now apparent Bohn should never have been hired in the first place.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2023
The New York Post, which usually chronicles the city’s sleazier underbelly, renamed itself The New York Pope for a day.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 25, 2015
And Tucci, playing a sleazier Tony Stark, is forever spuming the orders and insults of an undersize bully.
From Time ● Jun. 26, 2014
That made Kasem a fixture on news outlets that feed on the sleazier side of celebrity life at a time when it wasn’t clear he was aware of it or even able to understand.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 16, 2014
And when it comes to gleaning wisdom from the tabloid topics that have appeared on Ms. Winfrey’s sleazier shows, Ms. Kelley doesn’t do more than list them.
From New York Times ● Apr. 12, 2010
Yet one doesn’t need an AI bot to explain why Grammarly’s stunt has to rank among the sleaziest misuses of AI technology yet to appear.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2026
His screen persona has often been the sleaziest of weasels, the connoisseur’s moral degenerate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025
But of course this scandal touches on something deeper than garden-variety profiteering, even of the sleaziest sort.
From Salon ● Mar. 20, 2020
Altuve may both be the saddest and sleaziest figure in his team’s crime against baseball.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 25, 2020
There was another million of 'Mother Hubbard' wrappers, all of the sleaziest print and scrimpest pattern, with inch-wide hems at bottom and no fastening to speak of—wrappers enough to disfigure every female in Southern Texas.
From A Story of the Red Cross Glimpses of Field Work by Clara Barton
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.
