Definition of "tawdry" []

• Gaudy and cheap in nature or appearance. See Synonyms at gaudy1. (adjective)
• Shameful or indecent: tawdry secrets. (adjective)
• Cheap and gaudy finery. (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.

• "Some are life-size effigies, and they are dressed in tawdry finery, with a mask or false-face topped by a three-cornered cocked hat."
• "This odd bathos between the particular and the immense is clear to us in tawdry pop songs and moments of solitary sublimity"
• "He blamed ABC News for broadcasting an interview that he called "tawdry and inappropriate," but he did not directly respond to the account from his former wife, to whom he was married for 18 years."