sordid

[ sawr-did ]
See synonyms for: sordidsordidness on Thesaurus.com

adjective
  1. morally ignoble or base; vile: sordid methods.

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

  1. dirty or filthy.

  2. squalid; wretchedly poor and run-down: sordid housing.

Origin of sordid

1
1590–1600; from Latin sordidus, equivalent to sord(ēs) “dirt” + -idus-id4

synonym study For sordid

1. See mean2.

Other words for sordid

Opposites for sordid

Other words from sordid

  • sor·did·ly, adverb
  • sor·did·ness, noun
  • un·sor·did, adjective
  • un·sor·did·ly, adverb
  • un·sor·did·ness, noun

Words that may be confused with sordid

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use sordid in a sentence

  • For the Cut-rate had not cut his salary, which, sordidly speaking, ranked him star boarder at the Peek's.

    Roads of Destiny | O. Henry
  • If stage remuneration has decreased sordidly in our time for authorship, it has increased splendidly for actorship.

  • How drear and sordidly selfish, poor and unprofitable existence seems to him then.

  • Her brother was sordidly wicked,--a hoary ruffian, to whom the language of pity was as unintelligible as the gabble of monkeys.

    Edgar Huntley | Charles Brockden Brown
  • Above, men in dirty shirt-sleeves lolled out of the grimy windows, where long festoons of half-washed clothes drooped sordidly.

    The Decadent | Ralph Adams Cram

British Dictionary definitions for sordid

sordid

/ (ˈsɔːdɪd) /


adjective
  1. dirty, foul, or squalid

  2. degraded; vile; base: a sordid affair

  1. selfish and grasping: sordid avarice

Origin of sordid

1
C16: from Latin sordidus, from sordēre to be dirty

Derived forms of sordid

  • sordidly, adverb
  • sordidness, noun

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