What's the difference between gaudy and tawdry?

Gaudy


Definition:

  • (superl.) Ostentatiously fine; showy; gay, but tawdry or meretricious.
  • (superl.) Gay; merry; festal.
  • (n.) One of the large beads in the rosary at which the paternoster is recited.
  • (n.) A feast or festival; -- called also gaud-day and gaudy day.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The outcome is a belief that the Earth is being slowly strangled by a gaudy coat of impermeable plastic waste that collects in great floating islands in the world's oceans; clogs up canals and rivers; and is swallowed by animals, birds and sea creatures.
  • (2) Gaudy, Elizabeth T. (University of Illinois, Urbana), and R. S. Wolfe.
  • (3) Feeling peckish, I ride to the lake’s official and slightly gaudy Strandbad, which is free to get in and has several snack stalls.
  • (4) We have seen upsets and outbursts, sunshine and downpours, staggering exits and gaudy new arrivals.
  • (5) In the swimming pool below us, a throng of bikini-clad women and lads in Quiksilver board shorts are drinking gaudy cocktails and splashing about, having piggy-back pool fights.
  • (6) The march was later stopped a block away from Trump’s gaudy Fifth Avenue skyscraper where earlier in the day protester Margot Borske, 61, a nurse practitioner, told the Guardian: “We can continue to make our protest heard for every piece of legislation, every cabinet appointment, every amendment he tries to overturn [to] set this country back 50 years.
  • (7) Nestled away on an anonymous street behind Victoria station in London, opposite a Ladbrokes betting shop and overshadowed by the gaudy branding of a nearby restaurant called Loco Mexicano, is a little glass door crowned with the words Pret Academy.
  • (8) Gezi Park was completely cleared of the gaudy paraphernalia of pluralist protest that had been its hallmark.
  • (9) So he positively enjoyed draping what is, in fact, a chilling allegory of paternal possessiveness and pseudo-scientific fanaticism, in the gaudy fabric of a "romance", just as the author pretends, in his pseudo-preface, to have discovered it among the works of "M de l'Aubépine" (French for "haw-thorn").
  • (10) I smoked it on the plane all the way back to London, hiding the gaudy light show under a blanket.
  • (11) They gave the orders, booked flights and accommodation, picked up the heroin, even bought loose, gaudy tourist shirts to cover up the drugs.
  • (12) In the middle of Amsterdam, the activists painted a small number of used bikes white, and issued a pamphlet stating that “the white bike symbolises simplicity and hygiene as opposed to the gaudiness and filth of the authoritarian car”.
  • (13) And who can forget a few years back when the bright, gaudy, rhinestoned nail designs popular with minorities made the jump from chavvy to chic as soon as the masses cottoned on?
  • (14) While shaking NBA commissioner Adam Silver's hand, Wiggins flashed a grin so wide that it almost – almost – deflected attention away from his gaudy, florally-patterned suit.
  • (15) So I’ve always dismissed cruising – with its gaudy decor and ra-ra entertainment – as tacky and unimaginative at best, socially shameful and environmentally reprehensible at worst.
  • (16) The spectre of Blair has been hanging over proceedings like forgotten Christmas decorations after Twelfth Night, a gaudy reminder of times past, once enjoyable but now dragging on.
  • (17) But my father is very far from being a hero – I always say if someone reads my book and wants to be Pablo Escobar, then I did a bad job.” And while Narcos does have a certain Goodfellas -style glamour to its depiction of Escobar’s gaudy world, it is careful to present a fully rounded portrayal of the drugs trade.
  • (18) Shoppers might well look upon it as Catholics do Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, a design that adds fantasia to the architectural experience of their religion.
  • (19) But the reality is that, like the gaudy birds in the aviary on the shores of the Zugersee, he is unable to flutter very far.
  • (20) Yet Douglas points out that real stardom came relatively late, when he was nudging middle age, with the gaudy double-header of Fatal Attraction and Wall Street.

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.