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.

Adjective

(er)

Not clearly expressed; stated in indefinite terms.

*

*2004: , Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage

*:Throughout the first week of his presidency, Dulles and Bissell continued to brief Kennedy on their strategy for Cuba, but the men were vague and their meetings offered little in the way of hard facts.

Not having a precise meaning.

:

Not clearly defined, grasped, or understood; indistinct; slight.

:

Not clearly felt or sensed; somewhat subconscious.

:

Not thinking or expressing one’s thoughts clearly or precisely.

Lacking expression; vacant.

Not sharply outlined; hazy.

*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title= “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./1/2

, passage=He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps.}}

Wandering; vagrant; vagabond.

*Sir (c.1564-1627)

*:to set upon the vague villains

*(John Keats) (1795-1821)

*:She danced along with vague , regardless eyes.