Definition of "squalor" [squa•lor]

• A filthy and wretched condition or quality. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Although there are folks who do just that Lakeside and it is not in squalor, that is a bit dated."
• "The persons, clothing, and houses are alive with vermin, and if the word squalor can be applied to independent and industrious people, they were squalid."
• "Why the throb of romance should have beat time for me to such visions I can scarce explain, or can explain only by the fact that the squalor was a squalor wonderfully mixed and seasoned, and that I should wrong the whole impression if I didn't figure it first and foremost as that of some vast succulent cornucopia."