Sleazy Meaning Thin or Flimsy — Not Disreputable

Welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Lisa Linton from Huntsville, Alabama, Rocket City, USA.

All right. Well, Lisa, what’s on your mind today?

I was listening to your program a few weeks ago, and I remembered hearing the use of this word, sleazy, you know, like sleazeball, sleazy.

So my mother used to say this word, like if I’m dressed, she always used it in reference to being dressed up, looking really good, sitting just tight enough to show that you’re a woman and loose enough to show that you’re a lady.

And it looked so good.

She said, you look sleazy. That dress is sleazy.

And now it was like my head would do a 180 like, Mom, what?

Is sleazy one of those kind of words that at one time meant something good?

Well, that’s a quick question.

You look good. You look sleazy.

Let me summarize here.

So your mother is talking about a dress being sleazy, but she doesn’t mean sleazy, S-L-E-A-Z-Y.

She means attractive or nice or even…

That’s what she meant, right.

Okay.

She meant it looking attractive.

So I thought she was playing on the word for, you know, if it’s kind of slim looking, slinky or sexy, you know.

But she was very consistent with that.

We’re sleazy. We’re getting ready for church.

I look sleazy. I’m like, Mom, you can’t go to church like that.

No, you’re on to something.

The word sleazy, S-L-E-A-Z-Y, has undergone a transformation in the 300 plus years that it’s been around.

Originally referred to kind of like the lanugo or the downy hair, like on the legs of flies and other insects or something hairy or fuzzy.

Fibers of twisted rope could be called sleazy.

And then that meaning transformed a little bit, not long after, to mean thin or flimsy, just like hair might be, or having little substance or body.

And that was used specifically to refer to textiles or fabrics.

And I’m wondering if your mother has hung on somehow to this much older use of sleazy to refer to thin or flimsy fabric.

You know what? And she often used it when I dress, often when it’s something that’s a very thin fabric, like an organza or chiffon.

Yeah, exactly.

Like a fabric? That’s exactly what I was thinking of.

So I’m wondering if there wasn’t some history of that older meaning of sleazy kind of sticking around.

And she’s using it from her heritage and not because she got a word wrong or because of a malapropism.

Right.

That’s what I thought because I used to ask her and she’s just like, it is what it is.

But my mother, she is a wordsmith.

My parents would play Scrabble for lunch.

I mean, they know their words.

So I knew there had to be something about it.

Okay, so that makes a lot of sense because, you know, down here in the South, when it gets hot, you need something.

And it’s definitely in the Caribbean, too.

So that’s, wow.

So that’s what we know, Lisa.

I hope that helps.

Oh, that helps a lot.

That helps tremendously.

I can’t wait.

We appreciate your time.

Take care of yourself and call us again sometime, all right?

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

There are lots of ways to reach us.

You can find them all on our website, waywordradio.org, contact.

Or you can call us 877-929-9673.