seedy

CEFRB2

/ˈsiːdi/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Looking dirty, poor, or unpleasant.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Containing or covered with seeds.

Examples

  • Tom and Mary live in a seedy rundown neighbourhood.

  • This bar is seedy. Let's leave.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
3
Synonyms
1

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Literal senses:, Having a peculiar flavour supposed to be derived from the weeds growing among the vines; said of certain kinds of French brandy.

  2. Literal senses:, Seedlike; having the flavour of seeds.

  3. Literal senses:

More examples

In context

  • His seedy, dirt-smudged visage caused her to look at him askance.

  • Pomegranates are as seedy as any fruit you are likely to see.

  • With her aching back and pronounced limp, she was feeling particularly seedy today.

Synonyms

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Nearby

Origin

adjective

From Middle English sedy, equivalent to seed + -y. The senses with negative connotation, first attested by 1725 in slang, originally especially “poor, out of money”, probably arose from the metaphor of a flower that has gone to seed, and is no longer considered beautiful. From there the word came to be used to describe unwell or past-their-prime people, and parallelly run-down places and by extension low-income or crime-affected urban areas. Compare the figurative expressions go to seed (by 1817), etc., originally in reference to plants, “cease flowering as seeds develop”.