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tawdry

[taw-dree] / ˈtɔ dri /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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Some critics have called Your Fault: London clichéd, unnecessary and "fanfiction-like" - Variety said the first film in the trilogy was "a trashy gimmick" and a "tasteless" adaptation of "tawdry teen literature".

From BBC Jun. 17, 2026

The whole affair was tawdry, shabby, and cheap—designed to pander to downwardly mobile young men who felt angry at the world.

From Slate Jun. 11, 2026

Admittedly, heaping this much flattery onto a tawdry piece of airport fiction adapted into a Sydney Sweeney-starring, big-screen sensation may seem hyperbolic.

From Salon Jan. 31, 2026

Soon it came to mean tawdry and second-class goods.

From The Wall Street Journal Dec. 18, 2025

The molting pink feathers are tawdry as carnival dolls and some of the starry sequins have come off.

From "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood

I’d give that honor to “The Fifth Step,” which in just 10 pages should scare anyone who’s been paying attention to the true crime stories splashed across the screens of this country’s tawdrier news sources.

From Seattle Times May 27, 2024

It’s upscale, informative reality TV, even as it tracks with tawdrier shows.

From Slate Aug. 3, 2020

Disney’s sojourn into the seedier, tawdrier precincts of social network gaming confused me.

From New York Times Aug. 15, 2010

The sport has also found itself at the center of some of Washington's tawdrier influence scandals in recent years, including those Jack Abramoff junkets to Scotland.

From Washington Post Apr. 29, 2010

The towns were larger, but they were tawdrier than ever.

From James Fenimore Cooper American Men of Letters by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

It’s quite a life, but the script by Stefani Robinson only cherry-picks the tawdriest bits from his Wikipedia entry for this biopic.

From Los Angeles Times Apr. 20, 2023

Some are well-executed and expensive, others the tawdriest of knockoffs.

From New York Times Nov. 21, 2022

Though established news organizations may filter out the tawdriest ads, other sites will run them and profit from them.

From Seattle Times Dec. 13, 2016

In one of the tawdriest details that materialized on Monday, Bo appeared to imply that there were romantic flickers between his deputy Wang Lijun and his wife Gu Kailai.

From Time Aug. 26, 2013

As if to justify myself to myself, my mind conceived of them only in their meanest and tawdriest aspects.

From Ghetto Tragedies by Israel Zangwill




Vocabulary lists containing tawdry


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