Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Like dross; pertaining to dross; abounding with dross, or waste or worthless material: applied to metals, and figuratively to other things.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of, pertaining to, resembling, dross; full of dross; impure; worthless.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective worthless

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word drossy.

Examples

  • They found generally lazy, drossy, kidding or less active in the areas where occlusion keeps less influences and other hand they gather together in compact and defensive form all the time as looser, where they see more impact of occlusion and presence of violent activist.

    Nepal: Disappearing Security in Occlusion 2010

  • What about some of the drossy OAP detective dramas like “Murder She Wrote” or “Diagnosis Murder”?

    NBC Cancels Christian Slater Drama “My Own Worst Enemy” 2008

  • You see in what a brotherly way I commence my letter: not with the frigid 'Sir' as if I were addressing one of a totally unkindred clay, one of the drossy children of earth, with whom I have no relationship and feel I could never have any familiarity.

    Life and Remains of John Clare "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" J. L. Cherry

  • Earth is a drossy thing in this man's account; earthly greatness and splendors are but like vanishing bubbles in this man's esteem.

    The Riches of Bunyan Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

  • Time will sift it of its drossy puffs and praises.

    Life and Remains of John Clare "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" J. L. Cherry

  • We change our drossy dust for gold, From death to life we fly: We let go shadows, and take hold Of immortality.

    The Riches of Bunyan Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

  • The gold does not yet run pure, is drossy and crude.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 58, August, 1862 Various

  • Olivia had shown him now, in silences, in sighs, in some unusual _aura_ of sincerity that was round her like the innocence of infancy, that what he thought was love a year ago was but its drossy elements.

    Doom Castle Neil Munro

  • These, my first impressions, were fully confirmed by subsequent intercourse, in situations and under circumstances which, by experience, I have found an unfailing alembic for the trial of character -- a crucible wherein, if the metal be impure, the drossy substances are sure to display themselves.

    What I Saw in California Edwin Bryant

  • Thus has he—and many more of the same bevy, that I know the drossy age dotes on—only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter, a kind of yesty collection which carries them through and through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.

    Act V. Scene II. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 1914

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.