Definitions

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

  • noun Stuffiness; stifling warmth in a room.
  • verb intransitive To enjoy being in a warm, close, stuffy place.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Back-formation from frowsty.

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Examples

  • Scaife bought sporting prints, a couple of Detaille's lithographs, and an easy-chair, known to dwellers upon the Hill as a "frowst;" Kinloch hung upon his side of the wall four pretty reproductions of French engravings, and with the help of three yards of velveteen and some cheap lace he made a very passable imitation of the mantel-cover in his mother's London boudoir; John scorned velveteen, lace, "frowsts," and French engravings.

    The Hill A Romance of Friendship Horace Annesley Vachell 1908

  • Hill as a "frowst"; Kinloch hung upon his side of the wall four pretty reproductions of French engravings, and with the help of three yards of velveteen and some cheap lace he made a very passable imitation of the mantel-cover in his mother's London boudoir; John scorned velveteen, lace, "frowsts," and French engravings.

    The Hill A Romance of Friendship Horace Annesley Vachell 1908

  • It was a big place with only a tiny stove to warm it, and the windows were shut so that the atmosphere was a cold frowst.

    Greenmantle 2005

  • I was pretty bad myself, but managed to move about all the time, for the frowst in my cabin would have sickened a hippo.

    Greenmantle 2005

  • If you want to keep warm while travelling (to frowst, as the open air school calls it) do not get in with well-bred Englishwomen.

    Dangerous Ages Rose Macaulay 1919

  • It was a big place with only a tiny stove to warm it, and the windows were shut so that the atmosphere was a cold frowst.

    Greenmantle John Buchan 1907

  • I was pretty bad myself, but managed to move about all the time, for the frowst in my cabin would have sickened a hippo.

    Greenmantle John Buchan 1907

  • The places are heated but not aired, and the smell is horrid; but they seem to revel in "frowst."

    My War Experiences in Two Continents Betty Keays-Young [Editor] Salmon 1890

  • The cure for this ill is not to sit still, Or frowst with a book by the fire; But to take a large hoe and a shovel also, And dig till you gently perspire;

    manybooks.net 2010

  • I looked about her room: the mess of clothes and jewels hung up or thrown down when she would not choose; the phials and jars and mirrors, the pots of physic everywhere; the warm frowst of women in a closed-up place; and I remembered it long ago, curtains flung wide to the sun, clean polished wood smelling of beeswax and lemon thyme; a bow and a silk cap on the unused bed; a lyre propped against the window-column, and crumbs on the sill for birds.

    The Bull From The Sea Renault, Mary 1962

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