Looking for an adjective...

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Mehrgan

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Hi,
Im looking for an adjective describing someone with a good taste (judgement) in, say, clothes, or house decoration ,etc. What is the opposite of that? (I'd appreciate it if you could even give me some informal or slang terms, especially in BrE.)



Many thanks in advance.
 

riquecohen

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Hi,
Im looking for an adjective describing someone with a good taste (judgement) in, say, clothes, or house decoration ,etc. What is the opposite of that? (I'd appreciate it if you could even give me some informal or slang terms, especially in BrE.)



Many thanks in advance.
Tasteful, refined, elegant. The opposite that comes to mind is tacky, which is quite informal.
 

bhaisahab

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Hi,
Im looking for an adjective describing someone with a good taste (judgement) in, say, clothes, or house decoration ,etc. What is the opposite of that? (I'd appreciate it if you could even give me some informal or slang terms, especially in BrE.)



Many thanks in advance.
"Discerning" is another adjective for someone with good judgment.
 

Mehrgan

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"Discerning" is another adjective for someone with good judgment.




Thanks a lot. Could "discerning" be used for someone who looks smart the way they dress and choose their clothes? Or, when they know how to match colours and styles with a good taste? Thanks.
 

bhaisahab

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Thanks a lot. Could "discerning" be used for someone who looks smart the way they dress and choose their clothes? Or, when they know how to match colours and styles with a good taste? Thanks.
Yes, he could be said to be discerning. It's quite a formal word, you are not likely to hear it very often.
 

Mehrgan

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Thanks again. In Persian we've got an adjective which can be used for people with good tastes in various areas. For example when someone chooses the best clothes, best colours, best house, and even best friends! That's why I was looking for such a term. So, can I use "tasteful" in informal English? Ta!
 

bhaisahab

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Thanks again. In Persian we've got an adjective which can be used for people with good tastes in various areas. For example when someone chooses the best clothes, best colours, best house, and even best friends! That's why I was looking for such a term. So, can I use "tasteful" in informal English? Ta!
You could say that somebody "dresses tastefully", but that's not very informal either. How informal do you want to be?
 

Mehrgan

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You could say that somebody "dresses tastefully", but that's not very informal either. How informal do you want to be?



By informal I mean something that even young people use it in everyday interactions. But, whatever you suggest will be great to me.
 

Munch

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Stylish is a fairly common everyday word for someone who has good style in some way. You could say "stylish dresser".

Sharp, used metaphoricallyis a bit less common. "Sharp dresser" is more specific and clear. In my experience, "sharp" is only used to refer to clothing though, not other forms of decoration.

Well-dressed (not sure about hyphenation) is another common, fairly neutral phrase for someone who chooses their clothes well.

These words are not used by young people any more than older people, however. I can't think of a particular word or phrase used by young people in everyday conversation to mean "well-dressed".
 

Mehrgan

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Thanks to all dear posters. Can I use the adverb "tastefully" in all occasions related to someone with a good taste? And, could the adjective "tasteful" be used for people as one of the posters has put it? (because in dictionaries it's used for something with good quality)


Thanks.
 

bhaisahab

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By informal I mean something that even young people use it in everyday interactions. But, whatever you suggest will be great to me.
My fifteen year old daughter says "a cool dresser" is what her friends say.
 

birdeen's call

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As for the antonyms. The obvious ones are "tasteless" and "inelegant". They are the exact opposites of "tasteful" and "elegant".

There are also words that mean "tastelessly showy", i.e. not only tasteless but also pretentious. These are "gaudy", "flashy", "cheap", "meretricious" (which used to mean "relating to a prostitute", but because prostitutes often dress themselves in a tastelessly showy way, it means "tastlessly showy" now).

Also "tawdry" means that. I guess it's a BrE word. I read in a dictionary that the word has a very interesting history.
the American Heritage Dictionary said:
From tawdry lace, lace necktie, alteration of Saint Audrey's lace (sold at the annual Saint Audrey's fair, Ely, England), after Saint Audrey (Saint Etheldreda), queen of Northumbria, who died in 679 of a throat tumor, supposedly because she delighted in fancy necklaces as a young woman.
the Collins English Ditionary said:
tawdry lace, shortened and altered from Seynt Audries lace, finery sold at the fair of St Audrey (Etheldrida), 7th-century queen of Northumbria and patron saint of Ely, Cambridgeshire

PS: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ is a great tool for finding synonyms (and for many other word-related activities ;-)). At the bottom of each entry you have a thesaurus section which might be very helpful to you.
 

jerry081958

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How about "smart"?

He is a smart dresser.
 
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