squalid
Americanadjective
-
foul and repulsive, as from lack of care or cleanliness; neglected and filthy.
- Synonyms:
- unclean
-
wretched; miserable; degraded; sordid.
adjective
-
dirty and repulsive, esp as a result of neglect or poverty
-
sordid
Related Words
See dirty.
Other Word Forms
- squalidity noun
- squalidly adverb
- squalidness noun
Etymology
Origin of squalid
1585–95; < Latin squālidus dirty, equivalent to squāl ( ēre ) to be dirty, encrusted + -idus -id 4
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.
Soutine settled into a squalid artists’ colony in Montparnasse as one among many Jewish immigrants living there.
Not even your passport or your birth certificate will save you if he carries through on that squalid Thanksgiving message.
From Los Angeles Times
Lawyers say instead it has become a “black site,” holding immigrants for days or weeks in squalid and unsanitary conditions without access to legal counsel.
An August 2024 report by the prison's independent monitoring board found inmate numbers in the "cramped, squalid" prison, had grown to 1,513.
From BBC
Before it was removed, residents say the squalid encampment had developed into a community.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
