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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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Kris pops in a disc of “Camp Miasma’s” tawdry 2008 reboot, which cinematographer Eric Yue makes look as flat as the discounted DVD.

From Los Angeles Times Aug. 6, 2026

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

From BBC Jun. 17, 2026

When the New Deal put a cop on the Wall Street beat, Dillon cleaned up his act and lived long enough to outlast the memory of his tawdry methods.

From The Wall Street Journal Nov. 21, 2025

Instead of a fixation on the tawdry side of life, you see works that explore the things that bind all people together: family, love, politics, complex emotions and sensual memories.

From Salon Aug. 13, 2024

Beside such treasures the gloves looked cheap and tawdry.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

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

While every show had its own brand of scandalousness, “Jerry” became the juiciest, the tawdriest, the ultimate lowbrow modern-day freak show.

From New York Times Jan. 17, 2018

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

If eloquence were all figure—even if it were, in any considerable degree, mere figure—then the tawdriest rhetorician would be the greatest orator.

From Western Characters or Types of Border Life in the Western States by F.O.C. Darley




Vocabulary lists containing tawdry


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