Dictionary

sordidness en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Latin sordidusder. Middle English sordid French sordideder. English sordid Proto-Germanic *-inōną Proto-Indo-European *-dyé- Proto-Germanic *-atjaną Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Germanic *-þuz Proto-Germanic *-assuz Proto-Germanic *-inassuz Proto-West Germanic *-nassī Old English -nes Middle English -nesse English -ness English sordidness From sordid + -ness.

Meanings

1. (uncountable) The quality or state of being sordid.
   • [W]e muſt not take this mercifull indulgence given to our defectuoſities, as a diſpenſation for the ſordidnes of our loves, but rather in a holy effect and contention of gratitude, ſtrain to love God the more purely, and irreſpectively to our ſelves, in regard of the tranſcendent benignity of this diſpenſation. 1648, Walter Montagu, “The Fourteenth Treatise. The Test and Ballance of Filial and Mercenary Love. §. II. Mercenary Love Defined, and the Relying Much on It Disswaded.”, in Miscellanea Spiritualia: Or, Devout Essaies, London: […] W[illiam] Lee, D[aniel] Pakeman, and G[abriel] Bedell, […], →OCLC, page 186:
   • Every possible care was taken of him, and in a day or two he was able to walk into the study again, where he sat gazing at the sordidness and unneatness of the apartment, the strange festoons and drapery of spiders' webs, […] a. 1865 (date written), Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Julian Hawthorne, Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret: A Romance […], Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, published 1883, →OCLC:
   • A brooding Northerner, Verhaeren sees the sorrow, the travail, the sordidness, going on all about him, and loves the world just the same, […] 1915, Amy Lowell, Six French Poets: Studies in Contemporary Literature, 2nd edition, The Macmillan Company, page 38:
2. (countable) The product or result of being sordid.
   • His was a nature—weak I own—that felt a sordidness in narrow means and their attendants; the ugliness of poverty pained his spirit. 1864, Katherine F. Williams, “The Rev. Mr. Allonby”, in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume XXVIII:

Forms