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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.

Yet “Venetian Vespers,” for all its moodiness, is elegantly compressed—the central drama occupies only a few days—and the conspiracy at its core is convincingly tawdry.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 9, 2025

He called that meeting "the most vomit-inducing episode in all the tawdry history of international diplomacy".

From BBC • Aug. 18, 2025

The writer Morrow Mayo seldom minced words, especially when his subject was the gaudy, tawdry city where he made his home in the 1920s and 1930s.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 10, 2025

Journalists like the word "affair" because it manages to be both tawdry and discreet.

From Salon • Apr. 15, 2024

In his last breaths, was he trying to tell me about the death of his adopted family—or admit to some tawdry, decades-long affair?

From "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs




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