dowdily

No one could deny that Grace was clever, but she was poor, dressed very plainly -- "dowdily," the girls said -- and "roomed" herself, that phrase meaning that she rented a little unfurnished room and cooked her own meals over an oil stove.

Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 1908

But sales at the dowdily middle-market deparment stores have been falling at a rate of 3 percent to 5 percent a year.

10 Big Thinkers for Big Business 2007

Negrepelisse as she really was, as Parisians saw her — a tall, lean, withered woman, with a pimpled face and faded complexion; angular, stiff, affected in her manner; pompous and provincial in her speech; and, and above all these things, dowdily dressed.

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris 2007

In her twenties, Hillary used to think she was ugly, and dressed dowdily to avoid attention, but now she takes care of herself and gets lots of Botox injections.

The New Hillary Book Steve Sailer 2005

In her twenties, Hillary used to think she was ugly, and dressed dowdily to avoid attention, but now she takes care of herself and gets lots of Botox injections.

Archive 2005-06-19 Steve Sailer 2005

She was dressed very simply, but still by no means dowdily, in a black silk dress, and though she wore a thick veil when she got out of the fly and rang the door bell, she had been at some pains with her hair before she left the inn.

The American Senator 2004

Viola dressed carefully for dinner in a pale blue silk evening gown, fashionably high-waisted and low at the bosom, but neither overdaring nor dowdily demure.

No Man's Mistress Balogh, Mary 2001

She dressed expensively and well, though far too dowdily for her age.

Best Kept Secrets Brown, Sandra, 1948- 1989

The receptionist, an American girl but with a narrow-nosed oval English face, recognized Sir Denis, announced him, and very shortly the secretary came out, an older woman, dowdily dressed in the seeming parody of a rural postmistress.

Kahawa Westlake, Donald E. 1982

For long he hesitated to assume the famous periwig; for a public man should travel gravely with his fashions, not foppishly before, nor dowdily behind, the central movement of his age.

Harvard Classics Volume 28 Essays English and American Various