SORDID

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does sordid mean? 

• SORDID (adjective)
  The adjective SORDID has 4 senses:

1. morally degraded

2. unethical or dishonest

3. foul and run-down and repulsive

4. meanly avaricious and mercenary

  Familiarity information: SORDID used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SORDID (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Morally degraded

Synonyms:

seamy; seedy; sleazy; sordid; squalid

Context example:

the squalid atmosphere of intrigue and betrayal

Similar:

disreputable (lacking respectability in character or behavior or appearance)

Derivation:

sordidness (unworthiness by virtue of lacking higher values)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Unethical or dishonest

Synonyms:

dirty; shoddy; sordid

Context example:

shoddy business practices

Similar:

corrupt (lacking in integrity)

Derivation:

sordidness (unworthiness by virtue of lacking higher values)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Foul and run-down and repulsive

Synonyms:

flyblown; sordid; squalid

Context example:

sordid shantytowns

Similar:

dirty; soiled; unclean (soiled or likely to soil with dirt or grime)

Derivation:

sordidness (sordid dirtiness)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Meanly avaricious and mercenary

Context example:

sordid material interests

Similar:

acquisitive (eager to acquire and possess things especially material possessions or ideas)

Derivation:

sordidness (unworthiness by virtue of lacking higher values)

 Context examples 

But death in its more sordid and terrible aspects was a thing with which I had been unacquainted till now.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

It is not now when you are in grief that I would vex your mind with such base and sordid matters.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

For the first time Ruth gazed upon the sordid face of poverty.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon explained himself.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was two storeys high; showed no window, nothing but a door on the lower storey and a blind forehead of discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged and sordid negligence.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I did indeed observe that the Yahoos were the only animals in this country subject to any diseases; which, however, were much fewer than horses have among us, and contracted, not by any ill-treatment they meet with, but by the nastiness and greediness of that sordid brute.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no prospect of aid was visible.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)