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Seedy
Definitions
- 1 Literal senses:; Containing or full of seeds.
"Pomegranates are as seedy as any fruit you are likely to see."
- 2 Literal senses:; Seedlike; having the flavour of seeds.
- 3 Literal senses:; Having a peculiar flavour supposed to be derived from the weeds growing among the vines; said of certain kinds of French brandy. colloquial
- 4 Inferior in condition or quality.; Shabby, run-down, possibly connected with bad, dishonest or illegal activities, somewhat disreputable. figuratively
"Sleazy city / Seedy films / Breathing so heavy / Next to my neighbour / Let’s get acquainted"
- 5 Inferior in condition or quality.; Untidy, unkempt. figuratively
"His seedy, dirt-smudged visage caused her to look at him askance."
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- 6 Inferior in condition or quality.; Infirm, unwell, gone to seed. figuratively
"With her aching back and pronounced limp, she was feeling particularly seedy today."
- 7 Inferior in condition or quality.; Suffering the effects of a hangover. figuratively
"After last night’s party we were all feeling pretty seedy."
- 1 morally degraded wordnet
- 2 full of seeds wordnet
- 3 somewhat ill or prone to illness wordnet
- 4 shabby and untidy wordnet
Etymology
From Middle English sedy, equivalent to seed + -y. The senses with negative connotation, first attested by 1725 in slang, originally especially “poor, out of money”, probably arose from the metaphor of a flower that has gone to seed, and is no longer considered beautiful. From there the word came to be used to describe unwell or past-their-prime people, and parallelly run-down places and by extension low-income or crime-affected urban areas. Compare the figurative expressions go to seed (by 1817), etc., originally in reference to plants, “cease flowering as seeds develop”.
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