frowsy

English

Alternative forms

• frowzy

Etymology

Unknown, but perhaps related to the dialectal adjective frowsty. Attested since the 1680s.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɹaʊzi/

Adjective

frowsy (comparative frowsier, superlative frowsiest)

1. Having a dingy, neglected, and scruffy appearance.
   • 1895, Thomas Hardy, chapter 9, in Jude the Obscure‎^[1]:

     Having, like Jude, made rather a hasty toilet to catch the train, Arabella looked a little frowsy, and her face was very far from possessing the animation which had characterized it at the bar the night before.

   • 1916, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Chapter 3, [2]

     Frowsy girls sat along the curbstones before their baskets.

   • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One, Chapter 1, [3]

     He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not now remember) and had been stricken immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess it.

   See also citations under frowzy.

Translations

neglected

• Bulgarian: запуснат (bg) (zapusnat)
• Catalan: desendreçat
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Finnish: resuinen