sordid

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sordide (“festering, purulent”),^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin sordidus (“dirty, foul, base, mean”),^{[5][2][4][6][3]} and partly borrowed from Middle French sordide, recorded in the 16th century.^[5][7][8][9] The Latin adjective is from sordeō (“to be dirty, be shabby”),^[5][4][6] related to sordēs (“dirt, filth”).^[6][4][9] Etymonline and Klein take the Latin family from Proto-Indo-European *sword- (“black, dark, dirty”), which would make it related to swart, inherited from Old English sweart (“black”), and Gothic 𐍃𐍅𐌰𐍂𐍄𐍃 (swarts).^{[6][9][4][10]} The OED compares Spanish sórdido, Italian sordido and Portuguese sórdido.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a sore or ulcer, festering, purulent, probably before 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie.^[2][4][6] The OED, whose entry has not been fully revised, dates the word only from 1596.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English as a medical term,^[11][2] and the OED's first medical quotations are from 1597.^[5] The general physical sense, dirty, foul, appears in Cotgrave's dictionary of 1611,^[5][4] and was applied to places from about 1631 (Donne), to living conditions from 1621 (Burton) and to clothing from 1656;^[5] of persons, "dirty or sluttish in habits", it was used from 1613 to 1712.^[5][7] A figurative line ran alongside: Spenser in 1596 used it for "menial, of low status", a sense that died out in the 18th century,^[5][7] and Cotgrave in 1611 already had "low, mean, ignoble", of actions and motives, especially those of self-interest or greed.^[5][4][6] Johnson (1755) separated "foul, filthy, dirty" from "intellectually dirty; mean, vile, base".^[12] The Oxford Dictionary of English dates the current senses to the early 17th century.^[11] In zoology the word described fishes and other animals of a dull, dirty colour, as in sordid dragonet, the drab female of the dragonet once thought a separate species.^[7][10] In British slang of the 1950s, Colin MacInnes used sordid as a noun for an unpleasant person.^[13]

Timeline

• before 1425 – of a sore, festering, purulent.^[2][4]
• 1596 – menial, of a low or coarse character (obsolete by 1751).^[5]
• 1611 – dirty, foul; also low, mean, ignoble, of actions or motives.^[5][4]
• 1613 – of persons, dirty in habits or appearance (obsolete by 1712).^[5]
• 1621 – of living conditions, squalid.^[5]
• 1668 – lacking refinement; coarse, rough.^[5]
• 1959 – noun, in slang, an unpleasant person.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Dirty and wretched; squalid: They lived in a sordid basement flat.^[14][10][5]
2. Morally low or degraded; base, sleazy: the sordid details of the scandal.^[14][10][7]
3. Marked by mean, selfish motives, especially greed for money; mercenary.^[14][10][7]
4. (zoology) Of a dull or dirty colour.^[10][7]
5. (medicine, now rare) Of a wound or ulcer: purulent, festering.^[7][5][2]
6. (obsolete, 1596–1751) Menial; of a low or coarse kind.^[5][7]

Word family

• sordidly
• sordidness
• unsordid

Related words

• sordes
• swart
• swarthy

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins