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Mordant vs Tawdry - What's the difference?

mordant | tawdry |

As adjectives the difference between mordant and tawdry

is that mordant is having or showing a sharp or critical quality; biting; caustic; sarcastic; keen; severe while tawdry is cheap and gaudy; showy.

As a noun mordant

is any substance used to facilitate the fixing of a dye to a fibre; usually a metallic compound which reacts with the dye using chelation.

As a verb mordant

is to subject to the action of, or imbue with, a mordant.

mordant

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Having or showing a sharp or critical quality; biting; caustic; sarcastic; keen; severe.

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • Any substance used to facilitate the fixing of a dye to a fibre; usually a metallic compound which reacts with the dye using chelation.
  • * 1964', ''In dyeing two mediums are required, the colouring matter and the '''mordant which fixes the dye in the wool.'' — , ''English Industries of the Middle Ages , p. 208.
  • Any corrosive substance used in etching.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To subject to the action of, or imbue with, a mordant.
    • Mordant these goods for dyeing.

    See also

    * (wikipedia "mordant") * mordent

    Anagrams

    * ----

    tawdry

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Cheap and gaudy; showy.
  • * 1823 , , Quentin Durward , ch. 33:
    • The rest of his dress—a dress always sufficiently tawdry —was overcharged with lace, embroidery, and ornament of every kind, and the plume of feathers which he wore was so high, as if intended to sweep the roof of the hall.
  • * 1917 , , Calvary Alley , ch. 20:
    • It was all cheap and incredibly tawdry , from the festoons of paper roses on the walls to the flash of paste jewels in make-believe crowns.
  • Unseemly, base, shameful.
  • * 1918 , , The Forty-Niners , ch. 1:
    • [T]he "greaser" was a dirty, idle, shiftless, treacherous, tawdry vagabond, dwelling in a disgracefully primitive house, and backward in every aspect of civilization.
  • * 1920 , , The Great Impersonation , ch. 16:
    • The woman's passion by his side seemed suddenly tawdry and unreal, the seeking of her lips for his something horrible.
  • * 2008 August 9, Clemente Lisi, " Lusty Lies of Don Juan John," New York Post (retrieved 16 Dec 2013):
    • After months of flat-out lying to the public, former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards finally copped to having a sleazy extramarital fling. . . . The tawdry affair has dogged Edwards over the past few months.
    Synonyms
    * See * sordid

    References

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