tawdry Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. adjective satellite tastelessly showy
    garish; gaudy; brassy; meretricious; tatty; flash; cheap; flashy; tacky; gimcrack; loud; trashy.
    • a flash car
    • a flashy ring
    • garish colors
    • a gaudy costume
    • loud sport shirts
    • a meretricious yet stylish book
    • tawdry ornaments
  2. adjective satellite cheap and shoddy
    shoddy; cheapjack.
    • cheapjack moviemaking...that feeds on the low taste of the mob"- Judith Crist

WordNet

Taw"dry adjective
Etymology
Said to be corrupted from Saint Audrey, or Auldrey, meaning Saint Ethelreda, implying therefore, originally, bought at the fair of St. Audrey, where laces and gay toys of all sorts were sold. This fair was held in Isle Ely, and probably at other places, on the day of the saint, which was the 17th of October.
Wordforms
comparative Tawdrier ; superlative Tawdriest
Definitions
  1. Bought at the festival of St. Audrey. Obs.
    And gird in your waist, For more fineness, with a tawdry lace. Spenser.
  2. 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. Spectator.
Taw"dry noun
Wordforms
plural Tawdries
Definitions
  1. 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. Drayton.

Webster 1913