Sordid Meaning
/ˈsɔː.dɪd/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
adjDistasteful, ignoble, vile, or contemptible.
adjDirty or squalid.
Sentence Examples
Can you understand why they have to pig it in one sordid room?
Live can so easily degenerate into something sordid and vulgar.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The journalist exposed the ____ truth about the corrupt politician's secret deals.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The newspaper article exposed the ____ details of the scandal that involved several city officials.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree Latin sordēs Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁ti Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁yeti Proto-Italic *-ēō Latin -eō Latin sordeō Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der. Proto-Italic *-iðos Latin -idus Latin sordidusder. Middle English sordid ▲ Latin sordiduslbor. French sordideder. English sordid From Middle English sordide, from Latin sordidus. Alternatively from French sordide.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 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:
"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."
— 1912, Willa Cather, The Bohemian Girl:
"Leaves sordid-tomentulose beneath"
— 1926, Paul Carpenter Standley, Trees and Shrubs of Mexico: Bignoniaceae-Asteraceae, page 1530:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The journalist exposed the ____ truth about the corrupt politician's secret deals.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The newspaper article exposed the ____ details of the scandal that involved several city officials.