sordid

comparative sordider · superlative sordidest

1. Distasteful, ignoble, vile, or contemptible.

   The politician was involved in a sordid money laundering scheme.

   1 more example

   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

2. Dirty or squalid.

   They rented a sordid apartment together.

   Synonyms: seedy

3. Morally degrading.

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

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

   2 more examples

   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

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

   1994, The Lion King, Be Prepared musical number

   Synonyms: seamy

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

   Leaves sordid-tomentulose beneath

   1926, Paul Carpenter Standley, Trees and Shrubs of Mexico: Bignoniaceae-Asteraceae, page 1530