frowsy

frowsy

English

Alternative forms

• frowzy

Etymology

Unknown, but perhaps related to the dialectal adjective frowsty. Attested since the 1680s.[1]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɹaʊzi/

Adjective

frowsy (comparative frowsier, superlative frowsiest)

1. Having a dingy, neglected, and scruffy appearance.
   • 1895, Thomas Hardy, chapter 9, in Jude the Obscure‎:

     Having, like Jude, made rather a hasty toilet to catch the train, Arabella looked a little frowsy, and her face was very far from possessing the animation which had characterized it at the bar the night before.

   • 1916, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Chapter 3,

     Frowsy girls sat along the curbstones before their baskets.

   • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One, Chapter 1,

     He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not now remember) and had been stricken immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess it.

   • See also citations under frowzy.

Translations

neglected

Bulgarian: запуснат (bg) (zapusnat) Catalan: desendreçat

Finnish: resuinen

References

1. “frowsy” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.