tawdry
/ˈtɔːdɹi/
"tawdry" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tawdry” is uncommon English (frequency #57,119 among 3,151 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #57,119
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Tawdry lace.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tawdry · tawdry · English
tawdry · rank #57,119 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #57,119
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH tabular
Nearest frequency peer: tabular (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “tawdry”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- synchronici…
synchronicity
42,886 corpus weight
- Syrah
Syrah
42,884 corpus weight
- tabular
tabular
42,883 corpus weight
- tawdry
tawdry
42,882 corpus weight
- Temecula
Temecula
42,880 corpus weight
- thalamus
thalamus
42,879 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “tawdry” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tawdry |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈtɔːdɹi/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #57,119 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tawdry” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tawdry is uncommon English at frequency #57,119 among 3,151 “T” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈtɔːdɹi/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
tawdry doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Shortened from tawdry lace; originally a corruption and rebracketing of Saint Audrey lace (from Old English Æðelþrȳð). The lace necklaces sold to pilgrims to Saint Audrey fell out of fashion in the 17th century, and so tawdry was reinterpreted as meaning “c… The correct English form is tawdry, spelled T-A-W-D-R-Y.
Definition
- 1Tawdry lace.
- 2Anything gaudy and cheap; pretentious finery.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how tawdry appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
That fiddling, parading fellow (you know who I mean) made us wait for him two hours […] only for the sake of having a little more tawdry upon his housings […].
Etymology
Shortened from tawdry lace; originally a corruption and rebracketing of Saint Audrey lace (from Old English Æðelþrȳð). The lace necklaces sold to pilgrims to Saint Audrey fell out of fashion in the 17th century, and so tawdry was reinterpreted as meaning “cheap” or “vulgar”.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "tawdry", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).