Squalid means dirty and wretched to live in. Squalid conditions, a squalid flat, squalid and cramped.
It joins dirt to misery, which is what separates it from merely dirty — squalid conditions are a moral charge against whoever allowed them. Figuratively a squalid affair is sordid rather than filthy. Note squalor; and that the Latin means to be rough or scaly.
1adjectivesqualidDirty and wretched to live in.
“The workers lived in squalid huts with no clean water.”
squalid is a quality of wretched dirt.
Latin squalidus comes from squalere, to be rough, stiff or dirty. Squalor comes from the same root.
Latin
squālidus
English, today
squalid
Built from
Learned borrowing from Latin squālidus. Latin squālidus, from squāleō (“to be rough or dirty”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA