seedy
/ˈsiːdi/adjective
seedy is spelled S-E-E-D-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is seedly: about 90 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Seedy is an adjective meaning “Containing or full of seeds”.
How many letters and syllables are in seedy?
| Letters | 5: S-E-E-D-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 35,748th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, seedly, about 90 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell seedy?
Seedy is spelled S-E-E-D-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for seedy in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is seedy?
Seedy appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 35,748th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce seedy?
- /ˈsiːdi/
Seedy has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-seedy.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of seedy
- seedier comparative
- seediest superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does seedy mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Containing or full of seeds.
Pomegranates are as seedy as any fruit you are likely to see.
- 2
Seedlike; having the flavour of seeds.
- 3
colloquialHaving a peculiar flavour supposed to be derived from the weeds growing among the vines; said of certain kinds of French brandy.
- 4
Shabby, run-down, possibly connected with bad, dishonest or illegal activities, somewhat disreputable.
- 5
Untidy, unkempt.
His seedy, dirt-smudged visage caused her to look at him askance.
- 6
Infirm, unwell, gone to seed.
With her aching back and pronounced limp, she was feeling particularly seedy today.
- 7
Suffering the effects of a hangover.
After last night’s party we were all feeling pretty seedy.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Seedy in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | voller Samenkörner , heruntergekommen, anrüchig, zwielichtig , schmuddelig, ungepflegt |
| Spanish | semilloso , desacreditado, de mala fama, mugriento, indecente, de mala muerte |
| French | louche, glauque |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does seedy come from?
From Middle English sedy, equivalent to seed + -y. The senses with negative connotation, first attested by 1725 in slang, originally especially “poor, out of money”, probably arose from the metaphor of a flower that has gone to seed, and is no longer considered beautiful. From there the word came to be used to describe unwell or past-their-prime people, and parallelly run-down places and by extension low-income or crime-affected urban areas. Compare the figurative expressions go to seed (by 1817), etc., originally in reference to plants, “cease flowering as seeds develop”.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).