tawdry
Americanadjective
-
(of finery, trappings, etc.) gaudy; showy and cheap.
- Synonyms:
- meretricious, flashy
- Antonyms:
- elegant
-
low or mean; base.
tawdry motives.
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
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
Explanation
Tawdry means cheap, shoddy, or tasteless. It can be used to describe almost anything from clothes to people to even events or affairs. You know that shiny black slip you picked up for nothing at a garage sale and used as the skirt of your lion-tamer Halloween costume? It's a bit tawdry. But it would really be tawdry if you wore it on a regular day out. Tawdry things often have a hint of desperation and immorality — like tawdry extramarital affairs or tawdry tales. With tawdry decorations and jewelry, quality has been exchanged for lots of flash and shine.
Vocabulary lists containing tawdry
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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:
This was almost hilariously tawdry, but MI5 was beguiled by Lyalin’s many disclosures about KGB operatives in London, made as a way to prove that he was not faking his defection.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
There could also be a feeling that it's "tawdry" to rake up these claims so many years later, he says.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
Kris pops in a disc of “Camp Miasma’s” tawdry 2008 reboot, which cinematographer Eric Yue makes look as flat as the discounted DVD.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
The whole affair was tawdry, shabby, and cheap—designed to pander to downwardly mobile young men who felt angry at the world.
From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026
Beside such treasures the gloves looked cheap and tawdry.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
I’d give that honor to “The Fifth Step,” which in just 10 pages should scare anyone who’s been paying attention to the true crime stories splashed across the screens of this country’s tawdrier news sources.
From Seattle Times ● May 27, 2024
It’s upscale, informative reality TV, even as it tracks with tawdrier shows.
From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2020
Alongside the scholarly works and memoirs on Bao’s shelves were tawdrier titles, many of them simply compilations of online gossip.
From New York Times ● Apr. 3, 2018
The sport has also found itself at the center of some of Washington's tawdrier influence scandals in recent years, including those Jack Abramoff junkets to Scotland.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 29, 2010
The scaffolding of much highly-prized sentiment would collapse, and the world of poetry and pageantry—particularly that of the tawdrier and more vendible poetry and pageantry—would be poorer by so much.
From An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation by Thorstein Veblen
It’s quite a life, but the script by Stefani Robinson only cherry-picks the tawdriest bits from his Wikipedia entry for this biopic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 20, 2023
Some are well-executed and expensive, others the tawdriest of knockoffs.
From New York Times ● Nov. 21, 2022
Though established news organizations may filter out the tawdriest ads, other sites will run them and profit from them.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 13, 2016
No organization wants to be a minor player in a major story, thus establishing a crude dynamic in which maximum resources are thrown at even the tawdriest detail.
From Time ● Jul. 26, 2010
If eloquence were all figure—even if it were, in any considerable degree, mere figure—then the tawdriest rhetorician would be the greatest orator.
From Western Characters or Types of Border Life in the Western States by F.O.C. Darley
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
