adv. [f. TAWDRY a. + -LY2.] In a tawdry manner; with cheap finery.
1736. Pulteney, Lett. to Swift, 21 Dec. A rabble of people … seeing her very oddly and tawdrily dressed, took her for a foreigner.
1752. Adventures of a Valet, II. 265. He dressed her not tawdrily, but in such a Manner, as a Woman of Prudence, and of a moderate Fortune would wish to appear.
1816. Sporting Mag., XLVIII. 189. A lady observing her neighbour in a public room, dressed very tawdrily.
1852. C. M. Butler, Themes for the Poet, 16.
| Leave not to bandit bards the tales of crime, | |
| Tawdrily glorious, vulgarly sublime. |
1879. Froude, Short Stud. (1883), IV. v. 351. The two figures … are tawdrily coloured in white and red and gold.
1920. M. Bodenheim, South State Street: Chicago, iii., in Advice, 84.
| With groping majesty, the endless crowd | |
| Pounds its searching chant of feet | |
| Down this tawdrily resplendent street. |
