seedy

Senso (Inglese)

  1. Literal senses:
  2. Literal senses:
  3. (colloquial) Literal senses:
  4. (figuratively) Inferior in condition or quality.
  5. (figuratively) Inferior in condition or quality.
  6. (figuratively) Inferior in condition or quality.
  7. (figuratively) Inferior in condition or quality.

Frequenza

25k
Pronunciato come (IPA)
/ˈsiːdi/
Etimologia (Inglese)

In summary

From Middle English sedy, equivalent to seed + -y. The senses with negative connotation, first attested by 1725 in slang, originally especially “poor, out of money”, probably arose from the metaphor of a flower that has gone to seed, and is no longer considered beautiful. From there the word came to be used to describe unwell or past-their-prime people, and parallelly run-down places and by extension low-income or crime-affected urban areas. Compare the figurative expressions go to seed (by 1817), etc., originally in reference to plants, “cease flowering as seeds develop”.

Migliora la tua pronuncia

Notes

Sign in to write sticky notes