Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Filth; refuse; dregs; dross; specifically, in medicine, crusts which form upon the lips and teeth of persons suffering from extreme exhaustion, as in typhoid and other fevers.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Foul matter; excretion; dregs; filthy, useless, or rejected matter of any kind; specifically (Med.), the foul matter that collects on the teeth and tongue in low fevers and other conditions attended with great vital depression.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Deposits of dirt or bacteria on the body, discharges; bacterial deposits on the teeth or tongue.
  • noun a small pterosaur that lived in the late Jurassic Period of the Mesozoic era

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin sordes, related to sordere.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology.

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Examples

  • Spongia qua eluuntur sordes Animadversionum, quas Jacobus Primirosius, Doctor Medicus, adversus Theses pro Circulatione sanguinis in Academia Ultrajectina disputatas nuper edidit.

    Henricus Regius Clarke, Desmond 2008

  • Et multo plures utraque habitura, multo splendidior futura, si non hae sordes splendidum lumen ejus obfuscarent, obstaret corruptio, et cauponantes quaedam harpyae, proletariique bonum hoc nobis non inviderent.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • 'Tis very good to wash his hands and face often, to shift his clothes, to have fair linen about him, to be decently and comely attired, for sordes vitiant, nastiness defiles and dejects any man that is so voluntarily, or compelled by want, it dulleth the spirits.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Ecclesia nundinationes, (templum est vaenale, deusque) tot sordes invehantur, tanta grassetur impietas, tanta nequitia, tam insanus miseriarum Euripus, et turbarum aestuarium, nostro inquam, omnium

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • The sordes or dirt falls to the bottom; the oil swims a-top; and being skimmed off, is barrelled up in small oblong casks.

    Travels through France and Italy 2004

  • Men who worked at the breastworks one day would be found in the hospitals on the next, burning with fever, tormented with insatiable thirst, racked with pains, or wild with delirium; their parched lips, and teeth blackened with sordes, the hot breath and sunken eyes, the sallow skin and trembling pulse, all telling of the violent workings of these diseases.

    Three Years in the Sixth Corps A Concise Narrative of Events in the Army of the Potomac, from 1861 to the Close of the Rebellion, April, 1865 George T. Stevens

  • _Covers_ our works, which are Nullae nostrae sordes aut defiled with many spots, with immunditiae imperfectionis the justice of His Son. imputantur, sed illa puritate

    The Scottish Reformation Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics Alexander F. Mitchell

  • The remedies most successful for the cases that assumed a typhoid character, with dry, cracked tongue, sordes on the teeth, and low sluggish pulse, were _Baptisia_ and _Bryonia_, given every two hours, alternately.

    An Epitome of the Homeopathic Healing Art Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time

  • Oil, sweat, filth; or the sordes of the body: an excrementitious viscosity, the excrements of oil and other ointments used about the body, and mixed with the sordes of the body: all base and loathsome.

    Meditations Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

  • The tongue was read and dry, sometimes cracked, and the teeth, gums and fauces coated with dark sordes.

    A History of Caroline County, Virginia 1924

Comments

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  • Foul matter; excretion; dregs; filthy, useless, or rejected matter of any kind; specifically (Med.), the foul matter that collects on the teeth and tongue in low fevers and other conditions attended with great vital depression.

    Why does this word have dinosaur-y tags?

    November 30, 2008

  • Because it's either a pterosaur, ichthyosaur, plesiosaur, or a placodont. I'm guessing pterosaur.

    Hint: click "image search."

    December 1, 2008

  • Not to be confused with swords.

    July 10, 2010

  • The king’s table manners weren’t nice;

    His beard caught enough to dine twice.

    The courtiers ignored these

    Great feculent sordes

    But not so his dogs nor the mice.

    March 15, 2019