Modifies a noun

• affair: In Executive Power, the president is conducting a tawdry affair with a young White House aide.

• show: You thought it was just another tawdry late-night TV show.

• world: We get a wonderfully balanced birdseye view of the tawdry, neon world of Vegas.

• tale: No doubt more of this tawdry tale will come out in the weeks to come!

• glamor: Visually the whole production convincingly replicated the tawdry glamor of the underbelly of the Great American Dream.

• spectacle: Postmodernists who criticize Adorno for denouncing the tawdry spectacle of consumer culture have no conception of his vision of what things could be.

Modifying Another Word

• rather: Some people feel that its immense popularity has turned it into a rather tawdry version of its former self.

• often: Real seaside jolliness is not self consciously artful, it has a robust vulgarity and is often tawdry.

Used with adjective complement

• seem: Here some of the shops stock pricey designer-label clothes, while others seem rather tawdry.