[f. as prec. + -NESS.] The state or quality of being sordid.

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  1.  Dirtiness, filthiness; unclean or soiled character; squalor.

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1637.  Sanderson, Serm. (1681), II. 63. To it [sc. money] … hath the very name of Sordidness been appropriated of old.

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1665.  Needham, Med. Medicinæ, 66. Carelesness, Sordidness in neglecting their own Bodies.

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1691.  Ray, Creation, II. (1704), 357. To deter Men and Women from Sluttishness and Sordidness.

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1819.  L. Hunt, Indicator, No. 8 (1822), I. 64. He sat looking at his old beard and the wilful sordidness of his hands.

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1833.  Ht. Martineau, Charmed Sea, i. 2. At the first glance the men looked all alike; their heads being shaved, and their dress uniform in its sordidness.

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  b.  Lack of refinement or elegance; coarseness or roughness. rare.

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1670.  Clarendon, Hist. Reb., XII. § 121. Nor did she prefer the glory of the Church of England before the sordidness of the Kirk of Scotland.

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1873.  Burton, Hist. Scot., VI. lxv. 24. They were offended at the sordidness of the food offered to them.

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  2.  Baseness or meanness; esp. low, mean, or mercenary character or motives; selfish regard for material gain in place of higher interests.

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1656.  Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., I. xcix. (1674), 133. Keeping continually … hid within the husk of their interest … with so much sordidness and obstinacy never to come out.

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1674.  trans. Scheffer’s Lapland, ix. 34. Their Priests who … vilify their doctrine by the sordidness of their lives.

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1702.  Echard, Eccl. Hist. (1710), 403. His chiefest advice to them about him was to abhor all rapine and sordidness.

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1746.  Francis, trans. Horace, Sat., I. vi. 90. III. 107.

        If none with Avarice justly brand my Fame,
With Sordidness, or Deeds too vile to name.

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1771.  Foote, Maid of Bath, III. Wks. 1799, II. 236. The sordidness of your mind and manners.

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1850.  L. Hunt, Autobiog., I. iii. 106. I blush to remember this … on account of the sordidness of the custom. Ibid., II. xi. 55. An extraordinary mixture of … fearlessness with sordidness.

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1870.  Pall Mall Gaz., 24 Dec., 2/1. The result is but a just retribution on our sordidness and Pharisaism.

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