Tawdry
['tɔːdrɪ] or ['tɔdri]
Definition
(superl.) Bought at the festival of St. Audrey.
(superl.) Very fine and showy in colors, without taste or elegance; having an excess of showy ornaments without grace; cheap and gaudy; as, a tawdry dress; tawdry feathers; tawdry colors.
(n.) A necklace of a rural fashion, bought at St. Audrey's fair; hence, a necklace in general.
Inputed by Huntington
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. Showy (without elegance), gaudy, flashy, glittering, in bad taste.
Typist: Vance
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Showy, flashy, tinsel, gaudy, meretricious
ANT:Chaste, rich, elegant, handsome, sumptuous
Checked by Herman
Definition
adj. showy without taste: gaudily dressed.—adj. Taw′dered tawdrily dressed.—adv. Taw′drily.—n. Taw′driness.—n.pl. Taw′drums finery.
Editor: Mamie
Examples
- It was a tawdry and ill-conceived imitation. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Many Germans who thought him rash or tawdry in their secret hearts, supported him publicly because he had so taking an air of success. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- What I saw struck me as tawdry, not grand; as grossly material, not poetically spiritual. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- She was not beautiful, nor was she rouged, and her dress was rather neat than tawdry. Harriette Wilson. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.
- Many of the first employments of these gifts of science have been vulgar, tawdry, stupid, or horrible. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- There was to be no clinging to tawdry superstitions. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
Checker: Tina