Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Unkempt; slovenly.
- adjective Having an unpleasant smell; musty.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In a state of disorder; offensive to the eye; slovenly; soiled; dingy; unkempt; dirty: said especially of the dress or the hair.
- Musty; rank; frowy.
- Froward; peevish; surly.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Slovenly; unkempt; untidy; frouzy.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Alternative spelling of
frowsy
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective negligent of neatness especially in dress and person; habitually dirty and unkempt
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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And here to the doorstep came the "slavey," very frowzy and very perplexed, to tell me that the missus would let me come back and wait in the kitchen.
JOHNNY UPRIGHT 2010
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There we were, in our Sunday best, watching the frowzy drowsy fille advance to the west.
The French word for plastered drunk... - French Word-A-Day 2010
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And truly I saw Johnny Upright, and his good wife and fair daughters, and frowzy slavey, like so many ghosts flitting eastward through the gloom, the monster city roaring at their heels.
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There we were, in our Sunday best, watching the frowzy drowsy fille advance to the west.
French Word-A-Day: 2010
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Soprano Emily Albrink's pert, pearl-toned Susanna may have been the liveliest, most affectionately detailed performance of the evening, but the coltish Cherubino of mezzo Brandy Lynn Hawkins, the amusingly frowzy Marcellina of mezzo Cynthia Hanna and the winkingly flamboyant turn by tenor Jesús Daniel Hernandez as Basilio all made fine impressions.
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She walked in the door, Tanya Berenger, in a maxidress and thrift-shop boots, once a well-known costume designer, now ancient and frowzy, living in a room in a sad hotel off Times Square, a place where the desk clerk sits behind a grille eating a tongue sandwich.
Underworld Don Delillo 2008
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She walked in the door, Tanya Berenger, in a maxidress and thrift-shop boots, once a well-known costume designer, now ancient and frowzy, living in a room in a sad hotel off Times Square, a place where the desk clerk sits behind a grille eating a tongue sandwich.
Underworld Don Delillo 2008
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This knife-wielding psychopath isn't jaunty, but hunched and frowzy.
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The old lady with the shawl and trowel adores her frowzy garden and in the vanished days of the empire-the pulse of the explorer quickened at the sight of a desert floor.
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She walked in the door, Tanya Berenger, in a maxidress and thrift-shop boots, once a well-known costume designer, now ancient and frowzy, living in a room in a sad hotel off Times Square, a place where the desk clerk sits behind a grille eating a tongue sandwich.
Underworld Don Delillo 2008
noirling commented on the word frowzy
(adj): A woman who is somewhat muscular, and has mannish mannerisms, possibly including facial hair. From the german: frau.
August 17, 2009
bilby commented on the word frowzy
Says who? Origin uncertain according to Online Etymological Dictionary (see OE link above).
August 17, 2009
yarb commented on the word frowzy
OED says perhaps cognate with frowsty, which it says is of uncertain origin but looks like OF frouste, meaning ruinous, decayed. There's also a reference to frowze, n., meaning perhaps "a wig of frizzed hair worn by women", also called uncertain and perhaps an alteration of frounce with reference to friz and fuzz.
I can't believe it has anything to do with frau, since frauen are not in the slightest frowzy.
August 17, 2009
janejetson commented on the word frowzy
also frowsy; underused
April 19, 2010
southcoastsounds commented on the word frowzy
My parents were from Lancashire UK, and frowsy (frowzy) meant that feeling you get when you wake up after a lunchtime nap - tired, muzzy, slightly vague, dishevelled. The sort of feeling you get when you need to get going and shake off the torpor!
August 4, 2010
rsure1 commented on the word frowzy
NO does not match
LIKE A BOSS
April 22, 2013