Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • see frowzy.

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

  • adjective Fetid, musty; rank; disordered and offensive to the smell or sight; slovenly; dingy. See frowzy.

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

  • adjective fetid, musty; rank; disordered and offensive to the smell or sight
  • adjective slovenly; dingy

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

British dialect frouzy froward, peevish, offensive to the eye or nose; compare froust a musty smell, frouse to rumple, frouze to curl, and English frounce, frowy.

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Examples

  • Neither was it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or emaciated horse, for a pair of horses in pretty good condition were released from the shafts and grazing on the frouzy grass.

    The Old Curiosity Shop 2007

  • This occupation was, to take down from the shelves of a worm – eaten wardrobe a quantity of frouzy garments, one by one; to subject each to a careful and minute inspection by holding it up against the light, and after folding it with great exactness, to lay it on one or other of two little heaps beside him.

    Nicholas Nickleby 2007

  • In damp weather, the place is rendered close, by the steams of moist acts of parliament and frouzy petitions; general postmen grow faint as they enter its infected limits, and shabby figures in quest of franks, flit restlessly to and fro like the troubled ghosts of Complete Letter – writers departed.

    Nicholas Nickleby 2007

  • In the day-time, as you make your way along the narrow streets, you see them all at work: upon the pavement, oftener than in their dark and frouzy shops: furbishing old clothes, and driving bargains.

    Pictures from Italy 2007

  • This must render the air moist, frouzy, and even putrid, if it was not well ventilated by winds from the mountains of Swisserland; and in the latter end of autumn, it must be subject to fogs.

    Travels through France and Italy 2004

  • I had heard of Blackwater Park, of fatiguing antique chairs, and dismal stained glass, and musty, frouzy hangings, and all the barbarous lumber which people born without a sense of comfort accumulate about them, in defiance of the consideration due to the convenience of their friends.

    The Woman in White 2003

  • What mean ye by bringing me this pair of frouzy shalwars?

    The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan James Morier

  • It don't look much like what you got on your head, but I work a lot in the garden, and if I don't have somethin 'on my head my hair gets all frouzy.

    Drusilla with a Million Elizabeth Cooper 1911

  • Her bowsprit cocked up like an old-fashioned frigate's; her jib-boom had been fished and spliced and nailed and clamped beyond further repair; and as she hove herself forward, and sat down on her broad tail, she looked for all the world like a blouzy, frouzy, bad old woman sneering at a decent girl.

    Captains Courageous Rudyard Kipling 1900

  • He glanced at the frouzy hair, to which not even the beauty of the face beneath could reconcile him; then at the scratched and sun-burned hands, and lastly at the stained and battered gown.

    An Algonquin Maiden A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada A. Ethelwyn Wetherald 1898

Comments

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  • Fetid, musty; rank; disordered and offensive to the smell or sight; slovenly; dingy.

    June 8, 2007