squalid
/ˈskwɒlɪd/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.60 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Extremely dirty and unpleasant.
adj
Showing or characterized by a contemptible lack of moral standards.
noun
Any member of the family Squalidae of dogfish sharks.
Example Sentences
- "[...] Mythologists describe Pan the son of Mercury (who was the God of Speech) with the upper part like a man, and the lower like a beast, to signifie that Truth is fair and comely, but a Lye squalid and Deformed."
- "a squalid attempt to buy votes"
- "Minister, I hardly think that we can exploit our Sovereign by involving her in some might call a squalid vote-grubbing exercise."
- "[A] demon is just what we’ve been needing for a long, long time for our squalid affairs, to gratify our squalid desires, the sort of demon, of course, who can be persuaded to believe that he is the demon who will take all our own demoniacality on his shoulders, an Antichrist bearing the Iron Cross, and will not insolently slip through our fingers to string himself up before time, as [Nikolai] Stavrogin did."
- "Numerous diet studies on squalids have shown that members of this family tend to feed mainly on teleosts and cephalopods[…]"
Etymology
Etymology tree Latin squālus Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *-ōs Proto-Italic *-ōs Latin -or Latin squālor Latin squāleō Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der. Proto-Italic *-iðos Latin -idus Latin squāliduslbor. English squalid Learned borrowing from Latin squālidus, from squālēre (“to be rough or dirty”).
Word Breakdown
- Root: Squalidae