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View synonyms for sordid

sordid

[ sawr-did ]

adjective

  1. morally ignoble or base; vile:

    sordid methods.

    Synonyms: depraved, degraded

    Antonyms: honorable

  2. meanly selfish, self-seeking, or mercenary.

    Synonyms: stingy, close, tight, avaricious

    Antonyms: generous

  3. dirty or filthy.

    Synonyms: foul, unclean

    Antonyms: clean

  4. squalid; wretchedly poor and run-down:

    sordid housing.



sordid

/ ˈsɔːdɪd /

adjective

  1. dirty, foul, or squalid
  2. degraded; vile; base

    a sordid affair

  3. selfish and grasping

    sordid avarice

“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Derived Forms

  • ˈsordidness, noun
  • ˈsordidly, adverb
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Other Words From

  • sordid·ly adverb
  • sordid·ness noun
  • un·sordid adjective
  • un·sordid·ly adverb
  • un·sordid·ness noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of sordid1

1590–1600; from Latin sordidus, equivalent to sord(ēs) “dirt” + -idus -id 4
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Word History and Origins

Origin of sordid1

C16: from Latin sordidus, from sordēre to be dirty
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Synonym Study

See mean 2.
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Example Sentences

Only time will tell whether the latest in the long and sordid history of youth abuse scandals will lead Texas to make real changes, redirecting resources away from prisons and into community-based rehabilitation and prevention programs.

A Democratic Attorney General a few years earlier resigned in a sordid sex scandal.

From Time

Jane was far from alone in what prosecutors describe as a sordid web of abuse and misconduct.

Alan Taylor, the distinguished University of Virginia historian, has spent his career upending the conventional story in favor of the more sordid and useful truth.

That some of his cartoons from the 1950s are unacceptable to modern audiences, however, is perhaps less surprising than his sordid personal life.

From Ozy

The U.K. tabloids, as is their wont, have branded her “shameless,” “sordid,” and “the scourge of society.”

Their relationship was messy and sordid and full of lies and jealousy and betrayal and backstabbing.

Other micro-countries have more sordid, even criminal, histories.

The sordid story of a female co-founder stripped of her title because she was harassed.

Are there larger lessons to be learned from this whole sordid tale?

When shall fond woman cease to give—when shall mean and sordid man be satisfied with something less than all she has to grant?

The expression fitted best the cruder, more sordid method of gaining possession of this woman.

By the light of the sordid knowledge that she had revealed to him he paid her back full tale.

With this political subjection one is reluctant to associate a more sordid kind of obligation.

It was amid such sordid troubles that Jess evolved the idea for her play.

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