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:
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
Admittedly, heaping this much flattery onto a tawdry piece of airport fiction adapted into a Sydney Sweeney-starring, big-screen sensation may seem hyperbolic.
From Salon ● Jan. 31, 2026
In his last breaths, was he trying to tell me about the death of his adopted family—or admit to some tawdry, decades-long affair?
From "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs
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
Peacock’s “Joe vs. Carole” uses the gifts of John Cameron Mitchell and Kate McKinnon to turn Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin into even tawdrier cartoons than they were in the rubbernecking Netflix series.
From New York Times ● Apr. 12, 2022
It’s upscale, informative reality TV, even as it tracks with tawdrier shows.
From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2020
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 towns were larger, but they were tawdrier than ever.
From James Fenimore Cooper American Men of Letters by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury
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
While every show had its own brand of scandalousness, “Jerry” became the juiciest, the tawdriest, the ultimate lowbrow modern-day freak show.
From New York Times ● Jan. 17, 2018
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
"Any plan, Phalanstery or Community, call it what you please, founded on self-government, is based on a sham, the tawdriest of shams."
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 48, October, 1861 by Various
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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.
