This week’s theme
Eponyms

This week’s words
Hoyle
Houdini
tawdry
McDonaldization
pooh-bah

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(TAW-dree)

MEANING:

adjective: Cheap, showy, and gaudy.

ETYMOLOGY:

Short for tawdry lace, a contraction of St Audrey lace. The story goes that Æthelthryth (c. 636-679 CE), also known as Etheldreda and Audrey, loved fine silk laces in her youth. She died of a throat tumor which she considered a punishment for her fondness of necklaces. She was a queen, but later became a nun, and eventually a saint. Cheap laces sold in St Audrey’s Fair in Ely, England, came to be known as St Audrey lace, and eventually shrank to tawdry lace. Earliest documented use: 1612. Also see, trumpery.

USAGE:

“When they visit Las Vegas and stay at Caesar’s Palace, she gazes in wonder at the tawdry casino.”
Why Did Sebastian Lelio Remake “Gloria”?; The Economist (London, UK); Mar 12, 2019.

“‘His library will service the man,’ says the architect. ‘His will be something very tawdry and very tacky.’”
Andrew Buncombe; ‘Tacky’, ‘Tawdry’, and a Project of Self-Aggrandisement; The Independent (London, UK); Feb 4, 2021.

See more usage examples of tawdry in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: