sordid

From Middle English sordide, from Latin sordidus.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsɔː.dɪd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsɔɹdɪd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)dɪd
• Homophone: sorted (in some varieties)

sordid (comparative sordider, superlative sordidest)

1. Distasteful, ignoble, vile, or contemptible.
   • 1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 6, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume I, Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC, pages 88–89:

     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.
   • 1912, Willa Cather, The Bohemian Girl:

     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.

   • 1994, The Lion King, Be Prepared musical number:

     I know it sounds sordid but you'll be rewarded, when at last I've been given my dues.

   • 2006, John C. Roberts, concurrence and dissent in part in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399 (2006)

     It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.

4. Grasping; stingy; avaricious.
5. Of a dull colour.

• See also Thesaurus:greedy, Thesaurus:unclean

• sordidity
• sordidly
• sordidness

• 'droids, disord, dorids, droids

sordid

1. nominative plural of sort

Borrowed from French sordide, from Latin sordidus.

sordid m or n (feminine singular sordidă, masculine plural sordizi, feminine and neuter plural sordide)

1. sordid