sleazy
/ˈsliːzi
/adjective (sleazier, sleaziest)
1(Of a person or situation) sordid, corrupt, or immoral: a sleazy private detective...
- He is completely embarrassed - he is not a sleazy person.
- I have been most successful when I have played sleazy people.
- He made no apologies for his rackety lifestyle, his liking for louche and even sleazy companions, his lavish consumption of cigars, brandy and champagne.
Synonyms
corrupt, immoral, sordid, unsavoury, unpleasant, disreputable
informal shady, sleazoid, sleazo
1.1(Of a place) squalid and seedy: a sleazy all-night cafe...
- Nalirra isn't a low-class, sleazy place like Brandt or Quet, but prejudice is high there and people seem to be tightly wound and minor things tend to set them off.
- He went drinking and he usually goes to this sleazy place in Brooklyn.
- He didn't want to buy into that cliche, although jazz did originate in rather sleazy places.
Synonyms
squalid, seedy, seamy, sordid, slummy, insalubrious, unpleasant, unprepossessing, mean, cheap, low-class, run down, down at heel
informal scruffy, scuzzy, tacky, crummy, grungy, ratty
British informal grotty
North American informal skanky
2 dated (Of textiles and clothing) flimsy.The anarchic dirty rock group androgenously slip onto the stage, fully clad in sleazy scarves and leather trousers....
- Monday night was another night of the fiddley diddley, where Sammy ensured he picked up a title with the sleazy shirt award.
- Plus the clothes here were perfectly fine, and I wasn't wasting my money on some sleazy outfit from some swanky store just for a date.
Derivatives
sleazily
- The actor is frighteningly vivid as his sleazily insinuating character.
- But no serving Conservative minister behaved as sleazily as this one has done.
- The former rages sleazily away, just on the right side of slack-jawed self-parody.
sleaziness
/ noun ...- In later years, Bernstein explained he didn't like the fact that jazz often was used on screen to suggest sleaziness.
- It's a highly sophisticated site which takes sex a million miles away from sleaziness.
- Roxie's character had been cleaned up, but it was all done with a knowing wink that enabled audiences to relish the film's diverting sleaziness.
Origin
Mid 17th century: of unknown origin.
It was originally thin or flimsy fabrics that were sleazy, not nightclubs or bars. The familiar modern senses ‘squalid and seedy’ and ‘sordid, corrupt, or immoral’ did not develop until the 1940s, from the idea of cloth being cheap and poor-quality. The corresponding noun sleaze was created from sleazy in the 1960s.