TAWDRY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Tawdry

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/tˈɔdri/ Listen

adjective

Tawdry adj. (compar. tawdrier; superl. tawdriest)

Bought at the festival of St. Audrey. (Obs.) "And gird in your waist, For more fineness, with a tawdry lace."

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. "He rails from morning to night at essenced fops and tawdry courtiers."

noun

Tawdry n. (pl. tawdries) A necklace of a rural fashion, bought at St. Audrey's fair; hence, a necklace in general. (Obs.) "Of which the Naiads and the blue Nereids make Them tawdries for their necks."

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Etymology of 'Tawdry'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tawdry" Quotes from Famous Books

... infinitely older and more elemental truth could be conveyed by a novel in which no person, good or bad, had any manners at all. Her work represents the first great assertion that the humdrum life of modern civilisation is a disguise as tawdry and deceptive as the costume of a bal masque. She showed that abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte ...

— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... tracts of corn-land so general throughout Cambridgeshire. After following this lane about a quarter of a mile, we came upon a small, retired ale-house, surrounded by trees. As we approached the door a stout, vulgar-looking woman, dressed in rather tawdry finery, ran out to meet us; on coming nearer, however, she stopped short as if surprised, and then re-entered the house as quickly as she had left it, calling to some one within as she did so. ...

— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... appeared hugely delighted with the enchantments of the garden. Lord, how he stared at the fireworks! Gods, how he huzzayed at the singing of a horrible painted wench who shrieked the ears off my head! A twopenny string of glass beads and a strip of tawdry cloth are treasures in Iroquois-land, and our savage valued ...

— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... finest Neck and Bosom, in a Word, the whole Person of a Woman exquisitely Beautiful. She affected to allure me with a forced Wantonness in her Look and Air; but I saw it checked with Hunger and Cold: Her Eyes were wan and eager, her Dress thin and tawdry, her Mein genteel and childish. This strange Figure gave me much Anguish of Heart, and to avoid being seen with her I went away, but could not forbear giving her a Crown. The poor thing sighed, curtisied, and with a Blessing, expressed ...

— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... wish to go through such an agony of emotion. The Acropolis made the whole of Europe seem tawdry. I felt ashamed of the gorgeous sights I had seen, of the rich dinners I had eaten, of the luxuries I had enjoyed. I felt as if I would like to have the whole of my past life fall away from me as a cast-off garment, and that if I could ...

— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

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