Sleazy

//ˈsliː.zi// adj

adj ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Marked by low quality; inferior; inadequate.

    "Al bought my furniture at ten percent of its value and Jim drove me to a sleazy side-avenue hotel, where I obtained a room at a low rate."

  2. 2
    Raunchy or perverted in nature; tastelessly sexual.

    "Sleazy, yeah, I like it sleazy / Oh let's get nasty baby / I like it sleazy / I'll take you for a bad ride"

  3. 3
    Untrustworthy.

    "She hated Ed Feinberg, the sleazy, lying, blood-sucking small-timer. Still he was a man; if he had called her up in the old days, in Seattle, she'd have entertained him."

  4. 4
    Thin and flimsy. dated

    "Shortly after his return in infirm old age to his native land, a little narrative of his adventures, forlornly published on sleazy gray paper, appeared among the peddlers, written, probably, not by himself, but taken down from his lips by another."

Adjective
  1. 1
    morally degraded wordnet
  2. 2
    of very poor quality; flimsy wordnet
  3. 3
    of cloth; thin and loosely woven wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
chintzydisreputablethinthreadbareassbad

Example

More examples

"Skinflicks usually play in old theaters in a sleazy part of town."

Etymology

Origin obscure. Possibly a corruption of Silesia, through a word meaning Silesian cloth. Silesia was formerly the most important location of Germany’s weaving industry.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.