entry
tawdry
/ˈtɔːdɹi/Cheaply showy; gaudy imitation
From O.English / medieval Christian name audrey (‘noble might’).
Word Ancestry
Ely had a good racket going in the 1500s: pilgrims came for St. Audrey’s fair, and along with devotion they bought little neck ribbons and trinkets. Those ribbons were called St. Audrey’s lace, but English speakers later sliced the phrase in the wrong place, and out popped tawdry lace. That innocent typo of the ear did the whole semantic job — first a necklace, then cheap finery, then anything that looks rich from across the room and falls apart when you get close. It helps that the saint herself was remembered for renouncing vanity after, as Bede tells it, a neck tumor became a kind of moral sermon. So tawdry is basically a souvenir from a medieval fair, with a saint, a misheard phrase, and a whiff of self-deception all packed into one word.
The Story
Ely had a good racket going in the 1500s: pilgrims came for St. Audrey’s fair, and along with devotion they bought little neck ribbons and trinkets. Those ribbons were called St. Audrey’s lace, but English speakers later sliced the phrase in the wrong place, and out popped tawdry lace. That innocent typo of the ear did the whole semantic job — first a necklace, then cheap finery, then anything that looks rich from across the room and falls apart when you get close. It helps that the saint herself was remembered for renouncing vanity after, as Bede tells it, a neck tumor became a kind of moral sermon. So tawdry is basically a souvenir from a medieval fair, with a saint, a misheard phrase, and a whiff of self-deception all packed into one word.
Kin & Kindred
From 'audrey'·‘noble might’
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Etymonline
Free Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Wiktionary