Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having a stale smell; musty.

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

  • adjective UK musty; stuffy (atmosphere)

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective stale and unclean smelling

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

Support

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

Examples

  • Alas, the taverns reputation declined over the years and by 1775 Garrick was referring to the frowsty bowers of the Dog and Duck as peopled with half-drunk fauns and dryads breaking lamps.

    Bedlam Catharine Arnold 2008

  • Alas, the taverns reputation declined over the years and by 1775 Garrick was referring to the frowsty bowers of the Dog and Duck as peopled with half-drunk fauns and dryads breaking lamps.

    Bedlam Catharine Arnold 2008

  • Alas, the taverns reputation declined over the years and by 1775 Garrick was referring to the frowsty bowers of the Dog and Duck as peopled with half-drunk fauns and dryads breaking lamps.

    Bedlam Catharine Arnold 2008

  • Placed on Diana's left at table, he gave her much voluble information about her neighbors, mostly ill-natured; he spoke familiarly of "that clever chap Marsham," as of a politician who owed his election for the division entirely to the good offices of Mr. Fred Birch's firm, and described Lady Lucy as "an old dear," though very "frowsty" in her ideas.

    The Testing of Diana Mallory Humphry Ward 1885

  • Lisa Spirling's production has a frowsty, precise design by Polly Sullivan and makes a shot at an interesting question: what makes people collude with horror?

    Richard III; Lullaby; Hundreds & Thousands – review 2011

  • Lisa Spirling's production has a frowsty, precise design by Polly Sullivan and makes a shot at an interesting question: what makes people collude with horror?

    Richard III; Lullaby; Hundreds & Thousands – review 2011

  • Explore it from the bottom of the bill and you'll encounter something different: tracts of featureless industrial estates, a world in which Wolseley police cars clatter under railway bridges in Croydon and mid-price actors occupy frowsty suburban drags.

    Archive 2008-03-01 2008

  • This is a street party that has rendered the street invisible, blocking off the frowsty buildings, replacing traffic with communal tables set with vases of spring flowers, even lowering the no doubt sullen sky with a breezy foliage of flags and bunting.

    The big picture: a coronation street party in Islington, London, 1937 2010

  • Sometimes I suspected that my uncle liked the frowsty old play because he acted the part of the Father in it, with one scene of tearful rejoicing that his son had come of age at the beginning, one of tearful lamentation when he thought his son dead near the middle, and one of tearful reunion when his son appeared alive and well at the end.

    Wicked Will Bailey MacDonald 2009

  • Roger & Gallet Signature Mini Guest Soaps -- (tip: store the soap in linens closets, sock drawers, etc ... and freshen up the frowsty air!)

    sur-le-champ - French Word-A-Day 2007

Comments

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

  • "They and their damp, close-packed beds filled the unventilated 'tween-decks with a strong, all-pervading smell of frowsty carnivores, far worse than the collection of vegetarian marsupials Stephen had carried from New Holland in an earlier voyage..."

    --Patrick O'Brian, The Surgeon's Mate, 291-292

    February 9, 2008