dreckitude

Etymology

From dreck + -itude.

Why this word is great

DRECKITUDE — [Noun] The quality of being dreck; a state of irredeemable worthlessness or trashiness. From Yiddish דרעק (drek, "dirt, crap"), tracing back through Middle High German drek to Old High German *threc (as in mūsthrec, "mouse-droppings"), with the suffix -itude lending it the weight of a formal condition. Unlike "detritus" (which suggests the neutral remains of disintegration) or "kitsch" (which may wink at its own garishness), dreckitude is unapologetic in its squalor. It is the greasy fast-food wrapper fused to the sidewalk by summer heat, the broken plastic chair abandoned in a vacant lot, the third-rate knockoff that fails even as camp—proof that some things exist only to be discarded, and that decay is not always tragic, sometimes merely tedious.

noun

  1. The quality of being dreck (junk, garbage).“Such is the depth of my confidence in the dreckitude of Jack Benny and SCTV.”