Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Seedy |
SeedyAdjective1. Full of seeds; "as seedy as a fig". 2. Shabby and untidy; "a surge of ragged scruffy children"; "he was soiled and seedy and fragrant with gin"- Mark Twain. 3. Morally degraded; "a seedy district"; "the seamy side of life"; "sleazy characters hanging around casinos"; "sleazy storefronts with...dirt on the walls"- Seattle Weekly; "the sordid details of his orgies stank under his very nostrils"- James Joyce; "the squalid atmosphere of intrigue and betrayal". 4. Weak and feeble; "I'm feeling seedy today". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "seedy" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1820. (references) |
Note: Seedy \Seed"y\, adjective. [Comparative Seedier; superlative Seediest.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Seedy Weary, worn out, out of sorts; run to seed. A hat or coat is termed seedy when it has become shabby. A man is seedy after a debauch, when he looks and feels out of sorts. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Slang in 1811 | SEEDY. Poor, pennyless, stiver-cramped, exhausted. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Synonyms: SeedySynonyms: debilitated (adj), enfeebled (adj), infirm (adj), scruffy (adj), seamy (adj), sleazy (adj), sordid (adj), squalid (adj). (additional references) |
| Synonyms by domain: shabbier (building & civil engineering, language), shabbiest (building & civil engineering, language). |
| Antonym: seedless (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Deterioration | Decayed; Verb: moth-eaten, worm-eaten; mildewed, rusty, moldy, spotted, seedy, time-worn, moss-grown; discolored; effete, wasted, crumbling, moldering, rotten, cankered, blighted, tainted; depraved; (vicious); decrepid, decrepit; broke, busted, broken, out of commission, hors de combat, out of action, broken down; done, done for, done up; worn out, used up, finished; beyond saving, fit for the dust hole, fit for the wastepaper basket, past work; (useless). |
Disease | Adjective: diseased; ailing; Verb: ill, ill of; taken ill, seized with; indisposed, unwell, sick, squeamish, poorly, seedy; affected with illness, afflicted with illness; laid up, confined, bedridden, invalided, in hospital, on the sick list; out of health, out of sorts; under the weather; valetudinary. |
Fatigue | Worn, worn out; battered,worn, worn out; battered, shattered, pulled down, seedy, altered. |
Poverty | Adjective: poor, indigent; poverty-stricken; badly off, poorly off, ill off; poor as a rat, poor as a church mouse, poor as a Job; fortuneless, dowerless, moneyless, penniless; unportioned, unmoneyed; impecunious; out of money, out of cash, short of money, short of cash; without a rap, not worth a rap;(money); qui n'a pas le sou, out of pocket, hard up; out at elbows, out at heels; seedy, bare-footed; beggarly, beggared; fleeced, stripped; bereft, bereaved; reduced; homeless. |
Weakness | Languid, poor, infirm; faint, faintish; sickly; (disease); dull, slack, evanid, spent, short-winded, effete; weather-beaten; decayed, rotten, worn, seedy, languishing, wasted, washy, laid low, pulled down, the worse for wear. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Seedy |
| English words defined with "seedy": debilitated ♦ enfeebled ♦ infirm ♦ scruffy, seamy, sleazy, sordid, squalid. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "seedy": seediness. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Let's cut out their kidneys and sell them to the black market and leave them in a seedy motel bathtub full of ice. (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; writing credit: Kevin Smith) I don't like the way this script of ours has turned out. It's turning into a seedy little drama (Network; writing credit: Paddy Chayefsky) | |
Lyrics | Lay your seedy judgements, who says they're part of our lives (Notorious; performing artist: Duran Duran) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Seedy" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 97.67% of the time. "Seedy" is used about 129 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 97.67% | 126 | 28,512 |
| Noun (proper) | 2.33% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 129 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "seedy": look seedy ♦ seedy looking ♦ seedy toe. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "seedy": seedy-looking, seedy-sounding. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
seedy | 14 |
seedy toe | 9 |
glass seedy | 4 |
crumpler seedy too | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "seedy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | me farë, i sëmurë (ailing, bad, case, compulsive, diseased, down, ill, invalid, morbid, noisome, pathological, patient, sick, sufferer, unhealthy, unsound, unwell), i plotë me farë. (various references) | |
Arabic | كثير البذور, متوعك (indisposed, out of health, poorly, shaky, sickly, sufferer, unwell), متبزر, غير طبيعي (off color, off colour, preternatural, unnatural, violent, weird), رث (dowdy, down, dungy, heel, inherit, mangy, outworn, shabby, slipshod, threadbare, worn, worn out), ردئ السمعة, بائس (afflicted, cheerless, deplorable, desolate, devil, disconsolate, distressed, forlorn, godforsaken, hapless, heel, helpless, lamentable, measly, miserable, paltry, pathetic, penurious, piteous, pitiful, poor, poverty stricken, ratty, sad, scruffy, sickly, sordid, squalid, unfortunate, unhappy, woeful, wretched). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | съмнителен (alleged, ambiguous, amphibious, dingy, disputable, doubtful, dubious, equivocal, fishy, fly-by-night, hedge, hole-and-corner, indeterminate, moot, off beat, phoney, precarious, problematic, queer, questionable, screwy, shady, shaky, suspect, suspicious, uncertain, unsure, vague), семест, в лошо настроение (ill-humored, ill-humoured, low-spirited, mean), оръфан (dilapidated, frayed), опърпан (disreputable, down at heel, shabby), неразположен (averse, chippy, indisposed, mean, off color, off colour, out of sorts, poorly, queer, squeamish, under the weather, unwell), занемарен (neglected, ragged, run down, shabby, sleazy, squalid, uncultivated, unkempt, untended), пълен със семена, долнопробен (cheap, hedge, shady, trashy). (various references) | |
Chinese | 多种子. (various references) | |
Czech | pochybný (devious, disreputable, dodgy, doubtful, dubious, equivocal, murky, problematical, questionable, seamy, shady, specious, suspect, unsavory), plný jadérek, ošumìlý (disreputable, dowdy, dowdyish, down at heel, scruffy, shabby, shoddy, threadbare). (various references) | |
Farsi | مندرس (Rundown, Threadbare), تخمی (Germinal), تخم دار, ازکارافتاده (Effete, Lameduck, Obsolete, Sear), بتخم افتاده . (various references) | |
Finnish | renttumainen (seedy-looking), nukkavieru (seedy-looking, shabby, threadbare). (various references) | |
French | râpé, plein de pépins (seed), patraque, miteux, minable, mal fichu, de mauvaise réputation, délabré. (various references) | |
German | schäbige (dingy, dowdily, shabby, sordidly, tackily), schäbig (cheap, dingily, disreputable, dowdy, mangy, mean, measly, moldy, paltry, pokily, poky, poor, raggedly, scabby, seedily, shabbily, shabby, shoddily, shoddy, sordid, stingy, tackily, tacks, tacky, threadbare, tinny). (various references) | |
Greek | σπορώδησ, σποριασμένοσ, ελεεινόσ (abject, beggarly, deplorable, disgraceful, forlorn, haggard, miserable, piteous, pitiable, scrub, scrubby, sorry, wretched), λυωμένοσ (molten). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מלא 'רעי ים, מוז ח (abandoned, forsaken, neglected, slipshod, tacky, unkempt), מרופט (ragged, shabby, tattered, threadbare). (various references) | |
Hungarian | magvas (pithy). (various references) | |
Italian | pieno di semi. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 見窄らしい (shabby), 見すぼらしい (shabby), よそ行き (according to, appears like, bell sounding, bitter gourd, company manners, from, going out, of all things, one's best clothes, out of, shabby, since, than, to be, to come, to go, tottering, totteringly, unsteady on its feet, weak from old age, with tottering steps, worn-out, wrinkled-up). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | よれよれ (shabby, worn-out, wrinkled-up), みすぼらしい (shabby). (various references) | |
Korean | "가 많은. (various references) | |
Manx | treih (abject, deplorable, doughy, drawn, feeble, forlorn, fragile, haggard, miserable, pale, pale-faced, pallid, pasty, pathetic, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, regrettable, rueful, sallow, sickly, wan, wretched, wretched of thing), rassagh (seed-producing;ripping, seminal), chingyssagh (painful), caihagh. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | eedysay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | puído (shabby, threadbare), gasto (consumption, cost, effete, exhausted, expenditure, expense, impoverished, jaded, offscourings, old, out, outgo, shabby, spent, threadbare, trite, untrue, waste, wear), com muitas sementes, cheio de sementes. (various references) | |
Romanian | uzat (cast off, decrepit, effete, jaded, mangy, napless, obsolete, outworn, peeled, shabby, spent, used, well worn, worn out), rupt (by the board, out at, ragged, ruptured, shabby, torn), ros (gnawed, jaded, napless, obsolete, threadbare), ponosit (cast off, decrepit, shabby), plin de seminţe, murdar (base, basely, bawdy, dingy, dirty, dungy, filthy, foul, foully, frowzy, greasy, grimy, grubby, impure, mangy, messy, nasty, piggish, piggy, poky, scurrilous, shabby, slimy, slovenly, smeary, smutty, soppy, sordid, sordidly, squalid, Tarry, thick, unclean, untidy), mahmur (dizzy, maudlin, sleepy), indispus (ailing, distempered, hipped, in a pet, indisposed, Moody, out of order, out of temper, poorly, queer, unwell, upset), bolnãvicios (cranky, delicate, dicky, diseased, frail, invalid, pasty, sickly, unhealthy, valetudinarian, weakly, weedy). (various references) | |
Russian | нездоровый (ailing, dicky, diseased, doughy, indisposed, insalubrious, noisome, poorly, under the weather, unhealthy, unhygienic, unsound, unwell, unwholesome), наполненный семенами, зернистый;потрепанный, поношенный (grey headed, shabby, time worn, time-worn, well worn). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | pun semenja. (various references) | |
Spanish | granado (pomegranate). (various references) | |
Swedish | sjaskig (blowzy, dowdy, flea-bitten, grubby, scrubby, scruffy, shabby, sleazy, tattered), krasslig (ailing, bad, cachectic, ill, off color, off colour, under the weather, unwell). (various references) | |
Thai | ไม่สบาย (Dicky), ทรุ"โทรม (mean), ซึ่งมีเมล็"มาก. (various references) | |
Turkish | tohumlu, rahatsız (ailing, bad, comfortless, constrained, diseased, disturbed, ill, in bad health, incommodious, indisposed, out of sorts, poorly, queer, sick, troubled, uncomfortable, uneasy, unrestful, unwell, worrisome), perişan (confused, dead beat, dead end, desolate, distraught, down and out, down at heels, forlorn, hangdog, out at elbows, poor, prostrate, ruinous, run down, scattered, shoestring, up the spout, wretched), keyifsiz (ailing, blue, cheerless, dejected, dispirited, doleful, down, humorless, humourless, in the doldrums, indisposed, mean, off color, off colour, out of humor, out of humour, out of sorts, poor spirited, poorly, queer, sick, under the weather, unwell), kılıksız (dowdy, dowdyish, down heels, down the heels, draggled, frumpish, hangdog, mean, poky, ratty, shabby, sleazy, slovenly, untidy), hasta gibi, hırpani (dowdy, shabby, slatternly, sleazy, ungainly, unkempt), çekirdekli (nucleate, pipy). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | зернистий (grainy, granular, granulated), поношений (bare, frayed, mangy, napless, old, ole, ratty, reach-me-down, sere, time worn, well worn, worn). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | sắp kết hạt xơ xác khó ở, đầy hạt. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Seedy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: edey, esediye, feedy, peedy, Saeedi, saey, saidy, seaty, seddy, sede, sedgy, sedi, Sediq, seede, seedo, seemy, seery, seety, seey, Seeya, Seidh, Seidl, seido, sendy, Seoudi, seudo, sevy, Seydo, sezy, sheady, Sheezdi, sidy, sledy, Speddy, stedy, steedy, suedey, suedy, syd, zedy. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "seedy" (pronounced sē"dē) |
| 3 | -ē" d ē | beady, deedy, greedy, Midi, needy, reedy, speedy, tweedy, weedy. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-e-e-s-y" | |
-1 letter: dees, deys, dyes, eyed, eyes, seed. | |
-2 letters: dee, dey, dye, eds, eye, see, yes. | |
-3 letters: de, ed, es, ye. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-e-e-s-y" | |
+1 letter: debyes, emydes, redyes, speedy, yessed. | |
+2 letters: deejays, densely, ecdyses, enskyed, essayed, eyelids, geodesy, hayseed, heydeys, medleys, moseyed, redeyes, seedily, yeasted. | |
+3 letters: andesyte, beeyards, birdseye, deadeyes, decayers, decoyers, delayers, dovekeys, doyennes, dyeweeds, ecdysone, edgeways, encysted, estrayed, eyedness, eyedrops, eyeshade, goldeyes, hayseeds, jerseyed, mayweeds, overdyes, oystered, restyled, sedately, speedily, speedway, storeyed, surveyed, syndeses, syphered, weekdays, yearends, yielders, yodelers. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Derivations 11. Rhymes 12. Anagrams | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.