Dictionary

frowsty en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (General-American) audio
• /ˈfraʊsti/ (General-American, Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Origin unknown; possibly a variant of frowsy (frousy, frouzy, frowzy), etymology also unknown; and possibly related to Old French frouste (“decayed, in a state of ruin”). Compare also froughy, frow.

Meanings

1. (UK, dialectal) Of an atmosphere: not fresh; close, musty, stuffy; of an object: having a musty, stale odour.
   • Perhaps the very best people were in Paris, but there was enough going on in Brussels to replicate that older, frowstier form of society that was to Morgan's taste. 2000, Brian [John William] Thompson, “Going Home”, in A Monkey among Crocodiles: The Disastrous Life of Mrs. Georgina Weldon, London: Flamingo, HarperCollinsPublishers, →ISBN, page 38:
   • [T]he London theatres themselves, nearly all of them, the meanest, dirtiest, dingiest, fustiest, frowstiest edifices in the country. 1921, W[alter] L[ionel] George, “Playgrounds”, in A London Mosaic, New York, N.Y.: Frederick A[bbott] Stokes Company, →OCLC, pages 15–16:
   • He thought of getting back by half-past twelve, / And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep / In draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumes / Of coke, and full of snoring, weary men. 1917 May, Siegfried Sassoon, “A Working Party”, in The Old Huntsman and Other Poems, London: William Heinemann, published January 1918, →OCLC, stanza 6, page 29:
   • [W]hy are single rooms so much worse than double ones? Fewer, further, frowstier? Damper, darker, dingier? Noisier, narrower, nastier? 1968 September 11 (date written), Janice Rossen, quoting Philip Larkin, “Philip Larkin Abroad”, in Dale Salwak, editor, Philip Larkin: The Man and His Work, Basingstoke, Hampshire; London: The Macmillan Press, published 1989, →DOI, →ISBN, page 48:
2. (UK, dialectal) Of a person: dull, slow; also, unkempt, untidy.
   • So Mrs. Beaver and the children came bundling out of the cave, all blinking in the daylight, and with earth all over them, and looking very frowsty and unbrushed and uncombed and with the sleep in their eyes. 1950, C[live] S[taples] Lewis, “The Spell Begins to Break”, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe […], London: Geoffrey Bles, →OCLC:
   • A window opened above the shop, and a frowsty-looking man, yellow-pale, was quickly and nervously hauling in the national flag. There were shouts of derision and mockery—a great overtone of acrid derision—the flag and its owner ignominiously disappeared. 1918–1921 (date written), D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “XX Settembre”, in Aaron’s Rod, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, published April 1922, →OCLC, page 215:
   • Man, he says, was still "frowsty-minded" and "half asleep" in the early twenty-first century, still in urgent danger of a relapse into the confused nightmare living of the Age of Frustration. 1933 September, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Text Resumes: The Tyranny of the Second Council”, in The Shape of Things to Come, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, 4th book (The Modern State Militant), page 362:

Forms

Deriveds

frouster · frowstiness · froust · frowster · frowstily · frowst

Synonyms

frowsy, frowzy · frowsy, frowzy · fusty