Cheap and showy

Usage examples of tawdry.

The Pope would die and the circus would actually begin with the tawdry tinkle of the hurdy-gurdy and monkeys on chains, the trumpet fanfare of a Fellini movie and the clowns and all the freaks and aerialists joining hands, dancing, capering across the screen.

Murdered one night outside a tawdry ambisexual cruising bar in the port city of Soward.

I stood by the viewall, looking out across megalopolis, and it was tawdry.

I see them in the corners of my eyes: the nuggets of reality hidden in the tawdry, skanky mosaic that is Legend.

Taaffe -- which does not imply that blame for any of the unrealistic or tawdry aspects of the Metaverse should be placed on anyone but me.

How entirely men misconceive the relation of style to thought may be seen in the replies they make when their writing is objected to, or in the ludicrous attempts of clumsy playfulness and tawdry eloquence when they wish to be regarded as writers.

Beside the Pursuivant rode a Witch in tawdry finery, and next to her an Invigilator, lean in form-fitting leathers painted with cat stripes.

Lady Rangle could afford the best, but their very newness made them tawdry.

The place had been almost full when she and Spens entered, the bright coats and lace-edged ruffles of the men and the overly tawdry finery of the local girls and pretty boys half obscured by veils of blue tobacco smoke.

Her high cheekbones resembled those of an elfin queen, her skin rosy yet unafflicted by tawdry make-up.

Certainly not this tawdry, brassy, blousey woman waggling her tongue at him across the table.

Now my breechclout concealed the broad belt, and the scabbard flapped against my legs, empty, Galna let me keep those, as he supposed, tawdry souvenirs of my struggle.

We marched again, in search of new conquests, but before I left I slipped the gorgeous tunic over the head of that effigy of mine, making the other featherwork look tawdry in comparison, and I promised the priest, whose care it was, that the circle of conquest I had begun should be broadened until we had scured enough feathers of the Nuitziton to cover the effigy completely.

The manuscript that she and the ghostwriter produced was thin but sufficiently tawdry in content to become an instant bestseller.

Beside the Pursuivant rode a Witch in tawdry finery, and next to her an Invigilator, lean in form-fitting leathers painted with cat stripes.