a. Also 6–7 sordide, 7 sorded. [a. F. sordide (16th c. in Godefroy; = Sp., Pg., It. sórdido), or ad. L. sordid-us dirty, foul, base, mean, etc., f. sord-ēre to be dirty: cf. SORDES.]
1. Path. a. Of suppurations, etc.: Corrupt, foul, repulsive; of the nature of sordes.
1597. Lowe, Chirurg., L iij b. The vlcers [are] inequal, sordides [sic],… euill fauoured, by reason of the humor, which is most sordide and stinking.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), II. 163. The skin parched, or soaked with sordid, fetid sweat. Ibid., II. 627. There is a dejection of sordid pus in considerable abundance.
1883. J. M. Duncan, Lect. Dis. Women (ed. 2), xvi. 161. An old grey-white accumulation of sordid epithelial detritus.
b. Of an ulcer, wound, etc.: Yielding or discharging matter of this kind.
1597. [see prec.].
1676. Wiseman, Surg. Treat., II. i. 165. There is a second sort of Matter affecting Ulcers that is thick, generated of abundance of gross tough Humours, and rendering the Ulcer foul; whence it is called a Sordid Vlcer.
1696. Phil. Trans., XIX. 291. The Wound was very sordid; and the inside as well as the outside beset with Slime.
1769. E. Bancroft, Guiana, 384. The disease corrodes the fingers and toes with a dry, sordid, scabby, and gangrenous ulcer.
1801. Med. Jrnl., V. 163. The incision on the left arm, which … had degenerated into a sordid ulcer.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), V. 556. In several sordid cutaneous eruptions.
2. Dirty, foul, filthy; repellent through want of cleanness or tidiness; in later use, mean and squalid.
1611. Cotgr., Sordide, sordide, foule, filthie, corrupt.
1627. Donne, Serm., xxii. (1640), 223. Sordid, senselesse, namelesse dust.
1655. Culpepper, etc. Riverius, IV. vii. 116. The choller and flegm which is more … impure, swims at the top, and so the blood seems impure and sordid.
1680. Otway, Orphan, I. iv. [I will] rather … live on sordid scraps at proud Men’s Doors.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 118/53. [They] sprinkle sordid Ashes all around.
1727–46. Thomson, Summer, 386. The trout is banish’d by the sordid stream.
1836. Emerson, Nature, Beauty, Wks. (Bohn), II. 147. In private places, among sordid objects, an act of truth or heroism seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple.
b. Of places, houses, etc.
1628. Donne, Serm., lxxv. (1640), 762. To finde a languishing wretch in a sordid corner.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 149. Their houses … within are poore and sordid.
1669. Phil. Trans., IV. 1136. The sweepings of the house, any kind of ashes, shovelings of any sordid place.
1821. Shelley, Adonais, xxxviii. Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.
1864. Burton, Scot Abr., I. iii. 122. Stately edifices … were doomed to fall into decay and be succeeded by sordid hovels.
1880. Mrs. Forrester, Roy & V., I. 56. She has escaped from her sordid surroundings.
c. Of life, conditions, etc.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. II. v. Through their owne nastinesse & sluttishnesse, & immund sordid maner of life, suffer their aire to putrifie.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., II. 108. The sordid and nasty way that the Ambassadour and all his train lived in.
1691. Ray, Creation, I. (1704), 110. What a Kind of barbarous and sordid Life we must necessarily have lived.
1764. Harmer, Observ., ii. § 13. 70. We … may have imagined … that Abraham lived in a sordid plenty.
1797. Godwin, Enquirer, II. iv. 206. He can procure a sordid meal.
1850. Mrs. Jameson, Leg. Monast. Ord. (1863), 253. With tattered raiment and all the outward signs of sordid misery.
1891. Kipling, Light that Failed, vii. (1900), 112. Dick’s experience of the sordid misery of want.
d. Of garments or clothing.
1655. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1687), 136/1. [They] wear the same garment in Winter as in Summer, and that sordid.
1673. W. Cave, Prim. Christ., III. v. 366. In a sordid and squalid Habit.
1752. Fielding, Amelia (1775), X. 8. The magistrate had too great an honour for truth to suspect that she ever appeared in sordid apparel.
1788. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xli. IV. 149. Sordid and scanty were their garments.
1851. Trench, Poems (1862), 183. They put the sordid grave clothes off.
† 3. Of persons (or animals): Dirty or sluttish in habits or appearance. Obs.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 232. They abstaine from Swines flesh: neither will that sweet aire of Arabia breath life to that sordide and stinking creature.
1664. H. More, Apology, 517. Provided we be not course and sordid, but reverent and comely in our public worship.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 464, ¶ 5. The Person he chanced to see was to Appearance an old sordid blind Man.
b. Zool. In the names of a few fishes or birds, in allusion to their dirty-looking color, as sordid chætodon, dragonet, scarus, thrush.
1803. Shaw, Gen. Zool., IV. II. 370. *Sordid Chætodon…. Dusky-grey Chætodon; native of the Arabian seas.
1769. Pennant, Brit. Zool. (1776), III. 147. The *Sordid Dragonet, Dracunculus.
1836. Yarrell, Brit. Fishes, I. 266. The Sordid Dragonet … generally occurs of small size.
1881. Day, Fishes Gt. Brit., I. 176. Sordid dragonet, dusky skulpin.
1803. Shaw, Gen. Zool., IV. II. 400. *Sordid Scarus…. Brown-ferruginous Scarus.
1801. Latham, Gen. Synop. Birds, Suppl. II. 186. *Sordid Thrush…. The plumage in general is greenish ash.
II. † 4. Of a coarse, gross, or inferior character or nature; befitting or appertaining to a mean person or thing; menial. Obs.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., V. v. 23. She … in his hand a distaffe to him gaue, That he thereon should spin both flax and tow; A sordid office for a mind so braue.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. I. § 5. He did thinke much to dispute with any that did alleage such base and sordide instances.
a. 1619. Fotherby, Atheom., II. i. § 8 (1622), 189. Not onely in liberall and ingenious Arts, but also in sordide and ignoble.
1655. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1687), 195/2. Modesty teacheth us to decline sordid things.
a. 1701. Maundrell, Journ. Jerus., 8 April (1707), 107. By which means it was redeem’d from that sordid use.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 168, ¶ 6. The long habit of connecting a knife with sordid offices.
5. Of actions, habits, etc.: Of a low, mean or despicable character; marked by or proceeding from ignoble motives, esp. of self-interest or monetary gain.
1611. Cotgr., Taquinerie, sordide miserie,… base pinching.
1639. in Verney Mem. (1907), I. 106. His sordide and base dissembling.
1682. Burnet, Rights Princes, ii. 35. The Clergy using all the basest and sordidest Arts possible to draw Legacies from Rich Widows.
1753. Richardson, Grandison, V. ii. 19. We see, Dr. Bartlett, in the behaviour, and sordid acquiescence with insults, of these three men, that offensive spirits cannot be true ones.
1781. Cowper, Truth, 76. What is all righteousness that men devise? What—but a sordid bargain for the skies?
1818. Bentham, Parl. Reform, 50. That they should sell the attachment of their friends … for dry and sordid gain.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xviii. IV. 162. His courage, his abilities,… had made him, in spite of his sordid vices, a favourite with his brethren in arms.
1873. Dixon, Two Queens, XVI. ii. III. 193. Though he got her money, he had never ceased repenting of his sordid act.
b. Lacking in refinement; low, coarse, rough.
1668. Extr. State P. rel. Friends (1912), III. 278. Edward Wivel … permits their sordid Conventicls to be … kept ther.
1744. Akenside, Pleas. Imag., II. 15. Long immured In noontide darkness by the glimmering lamp, Each Muse and each fair Science pined away The sordid hours.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 168, ¶ 3. To him who has passed most of his hours with the delicate and polite, many expressions will seem sordid.
c. absol. That which is sordid or mean.
1863. W. Morris, in Mackail, Life (1899), I. 21. Whatever there was of sordid about the story had slipped off him.
1902. J. Buchan, Watcher by Threshold, 189. Frankly, I hate the sordid and unpleasant.
6. Of persons, their character, etc.: Inclined to what is low, mean or ignoble; esp. moved by selfish or mercenary motives; influenced only by material considerations.
1636. [Freeman], trans. Seneca’s Shortn. Life (1663), 34. He sordid is, who catch’d with rude applause, Grown old, dies wrangling in a worthlesse cause.
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., 171. These Nations…, that are so unpolitick, may justly be called wild men, and of a sordid disposition.
1687. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), III. 241. He is sordid still, and nothing will change his base humour.
1727. Gay, Fables, I. xix. A Lion-cub of sordid mind, Avoided all the lion kind.
1789. Belsham, Ess., II. xli. 561. They are inveighed against as a base and sordid people.
1808. Scott, Marm., II. xxii. Her comrade was a sordid soul.
1840. Miss Mitford, in L’Estrange, Life (1870), III. vii. 108. The land … will probably be purchased by some sordid person upon the speculation of making us pay an inordinate rent.
1875. Manning, Mission H. Ghost, viii. 203. All men of the world are sordid, and the more worldly the more sordid.
absol. 1762. Cowper, To Miss Macartney, 54. Thus grief itself has comforts dear, The sordid never know.
7. Comb., as sordid-base.
1598. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum., II. iii. To think a fellow of thy outward presence, Should, in the frame and fashion of his mind, Be so degenerate, and sordid-base.
