seamy
/ˈsiːmi/adjective
Sordid, squalid, or showing a seam
From English, from Germanic seam (A join or line where things are sewn or meet).
Lineage
seam
-y
Selected stage
Modern English
seamy — Sordid, squalid, or showing a seam
The story
Seamy can describe something that has a seam, but its familiar figurative sense is sordid or disreputable—the “seamy side” of life. The word is built from seam and the adjective-forming suffix -y.
Seam comes through Middle English sem from Old English sēam, and earlier Proto-West Germanic *saum, Proto-Germanic *saumaz, “that which is sewn.” Wiktionary traces that Germanic word to Proto-Indo-European *syewH-. The suffix -y descends through Middle English -y and Old English -iġ, with the listed earlier forms Proto-West Germanic *-g, Proto-Germanic *-gaz, and Proto-Indo-European *-kos.
The adjective is recorded with its literal sense in Philip Larkin’s 1964 poem “The Whitsun Weddings,” which describes “seamy foreheads.” Its figurative sense is illustrated by David Brin’s 1987 novel The Uplift War and by a 2013 Guardian description of Lou Reed as a chronicler of life’s “seamier” side.