tawdry

American  

[taw-dree] / ˈtɔ dri /

adjective

tawdrier, tawdriest

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

   Synonyms:

   meretricious, flashy

   Antonyms:

   elegant

2. low or mean; base.

   tawdry motives.

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noun

1. cheap, gaudy apparel.

tawdry British  

/ ˈtɔːdrɪ /

adjective

1. cheap, showy, and of poor quality

   tawdry jewellery

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Other Word Forms

• tawdrily adverb
• tawdriness noun
• untawdry adjective

Etymology

Origin of tawdry

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

Example Sentences

Soon it came to mean tawdry and second-class goods.

From The Wall Street Journal

When the New Deal put a cop on the Wall Street beat, Dillon cleaned up his act and lived long enough to outlast the memory of his tawdry methods.

From The Wall Street Journal

Yet “Venetian Vespers,” for all its moodiness, is elegantly compressed—the central drama occupies only a few days—and the conspiracy at its core is convincingly tawdry.

From The Wall Street Journal

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.

From Salon

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

From BBC

Related Words

• sleazy
• tacky
• vulgar