Sordid
adj ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Distasteful, ignoble, vile, or contemptible.
"The more hopelessly sordid and insensible he appeared, the greater became Mrs. Shelby's dread of his succeeding in recapturing Eliza and her child, and of course the greater her motive for detaining him by every female artifice."
- 2 Dirty or squalid.
- 3 Morally degrading.
"He rode slowly home along the deserted road, watching the stars come out in the clear violet sky. They flashed softly into the limpid heavens, like jewels let fall into clear water. They were a reproach, he felt, to a sordid world."
- 4 Grasping; stingy; avaricious.
- 5 Of a dull colour.
"Leaves sordid-tomentulose beneath"
- 1 meanly avaricious and mercenary wordnet
- 2 foul and run-down and repulsive wordnet
- 3 unethical or dishonest wordnet
- 4 morally degraded wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Can you understand why they have to pig it in one sordid room?"
Etymology
From Middle English sordide, from Latin sordidus. Alternatively from French sordide.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.