Tawdry
You're not wearing that, are you?
tawdry
TOR-dree
adjective
Showy, but cheap and of poor quality
‘Tawdy’, a word which can be applied to all manner of tat, has an unexpected connection to an Anglo-Saxon queen.
Aethelthryth (try saying that six times fast) was born in Suffolk in the early seventh century. She married twice, becoming Queen of Northumbria on her second marriage, but soon after became a nun, founding an abbey that would later become the site of Ely Cathedral - the original abbey was destroyed by the Vikings. She died from some kind of tumour in her neck or throat, which she saw as God’s punishment for her earlier fondness for necklaces.
After her death her remains were moved by her sister from her original, humble grave to a new one inside a newly-constructed church in Ely. Despite having been dead for sixteen years, Aethelthryth’s body was ‘uncorrupted’ and the clothes she was buried in were thought to have miraculous healing properties. Shortly thereafter she became known as Saint Audrey, and her burial place became a site of pilgrimage.
At the annual fair held in her name pilgrims and admirers could buy a kind of necklace or choker called ‘St Audrey’s Lace’, designed to preserve modesty around the… chest area. Over time this name became contracted to ‘tawdry lace’. By the 17th century, and England having taken a turn for the Puritan, the lace necklaces were seen as tacky and old fashioned, and the word ‘tawdry’ took on its modern meaning.