sleazy
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈsliː.zi/
rhymes: -iːzi
Forms: form: sleazier
form: sleaziest
Etymology: Origin obscure. Possibly a corruption of Silesia, through a word meaning Silesian cloth. Silesia was formerly the most important location of Germany’s weaving industry.
Senses: examples: text: Al bought my furniture at ten percent of its value and Jim drove me to a sleazy side-avenue hotel, where I obtained a room at a low rate.
ref: 2014, Louis V. Rohr, The President's Hero, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 3:
synonyms: word: ass
word: bad
word: base
word: below par
word: broken
word: bum
word: cheap
word: chintzy
word: crappo
word: crappy
word: craptastic
word: crapperific
word: craptabulous
word: craptacular
word: crummy
word: flimsy
word: inferior
word: lousy
word: low
word: low-grade
word: pitiful
word: poor
word: rinky-dink
word: rubbish
word: sad
word: schlocky
word: shoddy
word: slight
word: slim
word: sorry
word: subpar
word: shitty
word: substandard
word: tin-pot
word: unacceptable
word: unfit
word: unsatisfactory
word: unsound
word: unsuitable
word: woeful
word: wretched
glosses: Marked by low quality; inferior; inadequate.
examples: text: Sleazy, yeah, I like it sleazy / Oh let's get nasty baby / I like it sleazy / I'll take you for a bad ride
ref: 1979, “Sleazy”, in Live and Sleazy, performed by Village People:
text: Nancy knew it was a sleazy movie because the channel's logo appeared in the lower right corner of the screen. This satellite station only showed sleazy films at this time of the night. Actually its selection of films was trashy at any time, but the after-eleven fare was especially so. […] It's garbage, a step or two removed from pornography.
ref: 2000, Stephen D. Dighton, Locked In, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 226:
synonyms: skeezy
glosses: Raunchy or perverted in nature; tastelessly sexual.
examples: text: She hated Ed Feinberg, the sleazy, lying, blood-sucking small-timer. Still he was a man; if he had called her up in the old days, in Seattle, she'd have entertained him.
ref: 1934, Lew Levenson, chapter VIII, in Butterfly Man:
text: The Gold Dust was a sleazy place, a clip joint with crooked gambling tables in the back and a fleet of B-girls who would give you a few minutes' vapid conversation and a peek at the tops of their breasts if you bought them a three-dollar drink […]
ref: 2007, Milton T. Burton, The Sweet and the Dead, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 1:
text: Their reasons are mainly because they are simply people that I would consider sleazy— sleazy, slimy, shady, whatever term you want to use. The point is that, I am not one of them.
ref: 2011, Gary Patella, Diary of an Evil Genius, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 38:
synonyms: unreliable
questionable
sketchy
shady
slimy
glosses: Untrustworthy.
examples: text: Shortly after his return in infirm old age to his native land, a little narrative of his adventures, forlornly published on sleazy gray paper, appeared among the peddlers, written, probably, not by himself, but taken down from his lips by another.
ref: 1855, Herman Melville, Israel Potter:
text: I hesitate to describe Sophy Epstein's dress. You won't like it. In the first place, it was cut too low, front and back, for a shoe clerk in a downtown loft. It was a black dress, near-princess in style, very tight as to fit, very short as to skirt, very sleazy as to material.
ref: 1912, Edna Ferber, “What She Wore”, in Buttered Side Down:
text: She noted with tenderness all the makeshifts: the darned chair-arms, the patent rocker covered with sleazy cretonne, the pasted strips of paper mending the birch-bark napkin-rings labeled "Papa" and "Mama."
ref: 1920, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 12, in Main Street:
text: Hilma donned her oldest dress, carried pick and shovel to a flower-blown knoll above the creek and there chose a site for the grave. […] Soon the sleazy dress clung to her back with a sweat of toil, and its stretched web undulated to the smooth play of muscles from shoulder to midback.
ref: 1920, Robert Welles Ritchie, chapter 4, in Trails to Two Moons:
glosses: Thin and flimsy.
raw_tags: of fabric
Derived terms: sleaze
sleaziness