frowsty
/ˈfraʊsti
/adjective (frowstier, frowstiest) British
Having a stale, warm, and stuffy atmosphere: a small, frowsty office...
- Yet, only a year ago, the conventional wisdom was that the Golden Jubilee was likely to be a frowsty and embarrassingly ill-attended affair.
- Here we are back in the pestilent purlieus of Walham Green, and the frowsty atmosphere of the frowsy ‘medium’ and the squalid séance.
- Its roughcast walls are pitted; it has an air of frowsty, shut-up dereliction.
Synonyms
stuffy, musty, airless, unventilated, fusty, close, muggy, stifling, suffocating, oppressive;
stale, stagnant, smelly;
North American funky
rare mucid
Derivatives
frowstiness
- When we think of pews and hassocks and the Parish Magazine, we tend to rebel against the yoke of official religion, with its suggestion of formalism and even frowstiness.
Origin
Mid 19th century (originally dialect): variant of frowzy.