sordidity

English

Etymology

From sordid +‎ -ity, perhaps after French sordidité.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sɔːˈdɪdɪti/

Noun

sordidity (countable and uncountable, plural sordidities)

1. (now rare) Sordidness.
   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York: Review Books, published 2001, page 283:

     …are they not from this fountain of covetousness, that greediness in getting, tenacity in keeping, sordidity in spending?

   • 1996, Will Self, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis, Bloomsbury, published 2011, page 14:

     She was not simply beautiful, but beautiful in a way that was so vastly improbable […] that to Richard, silly fool, she redeemed him, her, all of the sordidity and sopor, the tragic bathos that he felt sloshing about the Sealink.