squalid

English

Etymology 1

Etymology tree

Latin squālus

Proto-Indo-European *-os

Proto-Indo-European *-s

Proto-Indo-European *-ōs

Proto-Italic *-ōs

Latin -or

Latin squālor

Latin squāleō

Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der.

Proto-Italic *-iðos

Latin -idus

Latin squāliduslbor.

English squalid

Learned borrowing from Latin squālidus, from squālēre (“to be rough or dirty”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈskwɒlɪd/
• Rhymes: -ɒlɪd

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

squalid (comparative squalider, superlative squalidest)

1. Extremely dirty and unpleasant.
   • 1686, The Refin'd Courtier, or a Correction of several indecencies crept into civil conversation., London: Matthew Gilliflower:

     [...] Mythologists describe Pan the son of Mercury (who was the God of Speech) with the upper part like a man, and the lower like a beast, to signifie that Truth is fair and comely, but a Lye squalid and Deformed.

2. Showing or characterized by a contemptible lack of moral standards.

   a squalid attempt to buy votes

   • 1980 March 3, Antony Jay, Jonathan Lynn, “The Official Visit”, in Yes, Minister, season 1, episode 2, spoken by Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne):

     Minister, I hardly think that we can exploit our Sovereign by involving her in some might call a squalid vote-grubbing exercise.

   • 2004, Imre Kertész, translated by Tim Wilkinson, Kaddish for an Unborn Child […], New York, N.Y.: Vintage International, →ISBN, page 39:

     [A] demon is just what we’ve been needing for a long, long time for our squalid affairs, to gratify our squalid desires, the sort of demon, of course, who can be persuaded to believe that he is the demon who will take all our own demoniacality on his shoulders, an Antichrist bearing the Iron Cross, and will not insolently slip through our fingers to string himself up before time, as [Nikolai] Stavrogin did.

Derived terms

• squalidity
• squalidly
• squalidness
• unsqualid

Translations

extremely dirty

• Bulgarian: мръсен (bg) (mrǎsen), мизерен (bg) (mizeren)
• Catalan: brut (ca), llord (ca), immund
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 骯髒的 / 肮脏的 (āngzāng de), 污穢的 / 污秽的 (wūhuì de)

• Czech: špinavý (cs)
• Finnish: likainen (fi), rähjäinen (fi), surkea (fi)
• French: sordide (fr), (slang) dégueulasse (fr)
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: πιναρός (pinarós)

• Italian: squallido (it)
• Latin: squālidus
• Macedonian: ва́лкан (válkan)
• Māori: waikorohuhō, poke (mi), hawa
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: skitten (no)

• Portuguese: esquálido (pt), imundo (pt)
• Romanian: murdar (ro)
• Russian: гря́зный (ru) (grjáznyj)
• Spanish: inmundo (es), vil (es), mugriento (es), mugroso, cochambroso, escuálido (es) (rare)
• Sundanese: ledrek

showing lack of moral standards

• Bulgarian: подъл (bg) (podǎl), долен (bg) (dolen)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 卑鄙的 (bēibǐ de), 醜惡的 / 丑恶的 (chǒu’è de)

• Czech: odporný (cs), špinavý (cs), nechutný, hnusný (cs)
• Finnish: likainen (fi), alhainen (fi)
• Italian: squallido (it)
• Macedonian: по́дол (pódol), бе́ден (béden)
• Māori: poke (mi)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: skitten (no), sjofel

• Russian: ни́зкий (ru) (nízkij), по́длый (ru) (pódlyj)
• Spanish: sórdido (es)
• Turkish: rezil (tr)

Etymology 2

From taxonomic name Squalidae.

Noun

squalid (plural squalids)

1. (zoology) Any member of the family Squalidae of dogfish sharks.
   • 2008, David A. Ebert, James A. Sulikowski, Biology of Skates, page 126:

     Numerous diet studies on squalids have shown that members of this family tend to feed mainly on teleosts and cephalopods […]