ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by...

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[ whispers ] secrets.

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That's all.

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[ normal voice ] Check out the following sentence.

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Richard was dismissed from the board when his sordid affairs came to light.

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The word sordid most nearly means what?

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Spiteful, immoral, musty, secretive... Yeah, hmm...

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All right, well, Richard must have been up to somethin',

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because the board was having none of it.

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Let's try to figure out what sordid actually means.

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A - spiteful means malicious.

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Richard was probably spiteful, or full of spite,

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after being dismissed, but that doesn't really describe

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his affairs. C - musty means smelling of mold.

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The board itself was probably made up of, uh,

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creaky old aristocrats. They might be musty, moldy,

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but that's also not a description of someone's affairs.

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[ sneeze ] And D - secretive implies something done in, well, secret.

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Affairs are usually done in secret, but it's not

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part of the definition of sordid.

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Sordid means something vile or immoral,

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the sort of thing even the board won't put up with.

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That's why Rick got the boot. So B's the correct answer.

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Richard will probably find another job.

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Now we spoke with the board and, well, we've been sworn to secrecy.

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[ whispers ] Secrets.

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