(n.) Hence: Secondhand finery; cheap and tawdry decoration; affected elegance.
(n.) A place where old clothes are sold.
(n.) The trade or traffic in old clothes.
(a.) Trifling; contemptible.
Example Sentences:
(1) As the Powell quote above suggests, as of the early 1970s, they led the way into a world where the most ambitious groups dispensed with band-portraits, and even typography: to this day, even if album "sleeves" are now often boiled down to the size of a postage stamp, musicians usually serve notice of their ambition by leaving such fripperies off their artwork.
(2) Caucus and party members should use this contest to show that Labor has moved on from its leadership being determined on the basis of opinion polls, or the number of positive media profiles, or the amount of time spent schmoozing media owners and editors, or the frippery of selfies and content-less social media.
(3) But the fripperies, he acknowledges, are important.
(4) Based on the icons some claim to have seen, and the posters for the conference, the expectation is that it will follow Ive's philosophy: no frippery in appearance, and a "flatter", more functional appearance.
(5) The cross-section of the public who draw up the standard, in collaboration with Loughborough University researchers, allow little in the way of fripperies.
(6) With hindsight I wish we’d taken charge of education and not wasted time on gimmicky fripperies from Michael Gove and his advisers,” he said.
(7) But this is the wheelhouse of the mayor of a modern megacity: a strange balance between issues of global importance and fripperies like openings, baby-kissing tours and pie-eating contests – and if you happen to be Boris Johnson, performing the Mobot from time to time.
(8) It might seem the antithesis of Reynolds the neoclassicist; but it is actually a perfect example of the "ideal" discovered beneath the fripperies of nature.
(9) Cameron said the voters would not be swayed by unspecified "fripperies" but by whether the government delivered "good results about the things that British people care about".
(10) A solid device beneath a layer of whiz-bang frippery - New York Times Digging beneath the gimmicky features the New York Times's Farhad Manjoo found a solid, basic smartphone .
(11) In this carefully cultivated narrative, it is only the out-of-touch middle classes, who don’t live in the real world, who are able to indulge in the luxurious fripperies of socialism.
(12) Most of us enjoy the opportunity for a spending spree and, of course, anyone who wants to drop some cash in exchange for non-essential fripperies should do just that, with the usual disclaimers about sensible financial management, consideration of your available floor space, and the desirability of recyclable packaging.
(13) He added that the university which contributed £25m towards the school had “squandered money on a frippery”.
(14) If the Guardian means what it says then it is a different sort of politics – but it will involve not the fripperies of parliamentary constitutional change, but a substantial shift of decision-making and a new agenda which really does reconnect people with the political process.
(15) Tron features three chords; the next track, Visions of Load, dispenses with such extraneous fripperies and has only two.
(16) Women’s clothes are always frippery, luxury and always deemed unsuitable by someone, somewhere.
(17) During the day, many African immigrants are walking on the streets of Prato selling frippery.
Tawdry
Definition:
(superl.) Bought at the festival of St. Audrey.
(superl.) Very fine and showy in colors, without taste or elegance; having an excess of showy ornaments without grace; cheap and gaudy; as, a tawdry dress; tawdry feathers; tawdry colors.
(n.) A necklace of a rural fashion, bought at St. Audrey's fair; hence, a necklace in general.
Example Sentences:
(1) The citizenship debate is tawdry, conflated and ultimately pointless | Richard Ackland Read more On Wednesday, the prime minister criticised lawyers for backing terrorists.
(2) Writing in the Observer under the headline "Michael Gove, using history for politicking is tawdry" , Hunt seethes, "the government is using what should be a moment for national reflection and respectful debate to rewrite the historical record and sow political division."
(3) The BBC presenter confided to the Radio Times that he shares widespread public disdain for the "tawdry pretences" of modern politicians and the "green-bench pantomime" of Westminster politics.
(4) They were already emboldened by the tawdry campaign of fear used to stop Scottish independence.
(5) Rudd's "zero tolerance" for corruption, and his "disgust" for the tawdry shenanigans in NSW, were in the news cycle before the Icac recommendations – a deliberate bit of media management.
(6) Garvey finished with this somewhat tangential attack: "There are a lot of people who feel that Britain is a bit tawdry," going on to list its seamier side – reality telly, 24-hour drinking, a lapdancing club on every street corner, a Radio 5 Live presenter doing Woman's Hour (that last is my input) … "There are many people who have an asbo and the family are rather chuffed," she said.
(7) I wear a hijab and that’s going to be a problem, but once one person is able to do that, it then allows other people to dream too.” Though the never-ending campaign cycle and tawdry political fighting can breed apathy and disinterest in the American political process, Omar’s family fought for political representation, engendering in Omar a deep enthusiasm and optimism about the importance of the vote.
(8) This tawdry friendship of convenience, these pageants, lies and unethical compromises, may benefit Cameron and Xi, but they are an insult to the citizens of Britain, who cherish their hard-fought freedoms, and to those in China , who are still struggling courageously to achieve them.
(9) The prime minister who once promised a new politics is revealed as a shameless practitioner of the tawdry old art of government by patronage.
(10) Yesterday Bin Hammam claimed the allegations were a "tawdry manoeuvre" to discredit him ahead of the election, claiming for the first time the money was for administrative costs and travel expenses.
(11) It has become a symbol of intolerance, it faces a court battle with the federal government, and it has exemplified that most un-southern quality: tawdriness.
(12) Warrant suggests federal police are investigating Mal Brough over diary leak Read more Dreyfus, the shadow attorney general, told parliament the Australian people deserved answers about Brough’s “grubby” role in “one of the most tawdry episodes” of the Tony Abbott era.
(13) That is the tawdry secret that dare not speak its name."
(14) Since his conviction, politicians from all sides of the chamber have been, as the BBC always says, "united in their condemnation" of Walker and his tawdry struggle to hang on to his job and his £58,000 salary when he ought instead to have resigned immediately.
(15) "Press regulation is too important an issue to be answered by some tawdry deal cooked up at two in the morning in Ed Miliband's office," he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme on Tuesday.
(16) Bin Hammam, who previously labelled the investigation into the allegations a "tawdry manoeuvre" aimed at destabilising his election campaign, earlier muttered still more darkly.
(17) This apparently tawdry and peripheral form contains a hallucinatory history of the modern self.
(18) "It's getting a bit desperate isn't it when a club make an announcement that they've not had any interest in their players, trying to give the impression that they disapprove of the entire tawdry business.
(19) This is slightly disingenuous – in January, he and Trudie, his film-producer wife of 18 years and mother to four of his six children, gave a joint interview to Harper's Bazaar in which he claimed: "I don't think pedestrian sex is very interesting… we like tawdry."
(20) And the FA itself might finally recognise its responsibility to football’s fans and lead a boycott of Fifa , withdrawing in all but name from the committees and procedures of the tawdry, discredited outfit that represents the world’s favourite game.