Word-of-the-Day
tawdry
tawdry (adjective) – “cheap and gaudy in appearance or quality”; tacky.
That purple spandex outfit that your Aunt Audrey wore to your sister’s wedding? Tawdry. That naugahyde sofa in your neighbors’ house roughly the size of a city bus, with pop-up drink tables and full-body massage? Tawdry. That black velvet painting of a muscle-bound Amazon warrior? Tawdry.
Mnemonic device: “Aunt Audrey is tawdry”.
Did You Know?
In the 7th century, Etheldreda, the queen of Northumbria, renounced her husband and her royal position for the veil of a nun. She was renowned for her saintliness and is traditionally said to have died of a swelling in her throat, which she took as a judgment upon her fondness for wearing necklaces in her youth. Her shrine became a principal site of pilgrimage in England. An annual fair was held in her honor on October 17th, and her name became simplified to St. Audrey. At these fairs various kinds of cheap knickknacks were sold, along with a type of necklace called St. Audrey's lace, which by the 17th century had become altered to tawdry lace. Eventually, tawdry came to be used to describe anything cheap and gaudy that might be found at these fairs or anywhere else.
Don’t Stop Now! (Synonym Discussion of “tawdry”)
gaudy, tawdry, garish, flashy, meretricious mean vulgarly or cheaply showy. gaudy implies a tasteless use of overly bright, often clashing colors or excessive ornamentation (circus performers in gaudy costumes). tawdry applies to what is at once gaudy and cheap and sleazy (tawdry saloons). garish describes what is distressingly or offensively bright (garish neon signs). flashy implies an effect of brilliance quickly and easily seen to be shallow or vulgar (a flashy nightclub act). meretricious stresses falsity and may describe a tawdry show that beckons with a false allure or promise (a meretricious wasteland of casinos and bars).
In Context
Victoria's seedy Secret? It's gone from saucy to tawdry: And the tragedy is it's convincing young women this is the only way to be desirable,
Luxury is a bit of an odd concept – some people connect it entirely to high expenditure, some to something a bit tawdry and tasteless, some to something out of their reach and yet others to something they aspire to.
As Professor David Rowe from the University of Western Sydney noted, an event like “lingerie boxing” will “remain a sideshow. I can’t imagine any serious female boxer would go near such a tawdry spectacle”.