dowdiness


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dow·dy

 (dou′dē)
adj. dow·di·er, dow·di·est
1. Lacking stylishness or neatness; shabby: a dowdy gray outfit.
2. Old-fashioned; antiquated.
n. pl. dow·dies
A dowdy person; a frump.
[From Middle English doude, immoral, unattractive, or shabbily dressed woman.]
dow′di·ly adv.
dow′di·ness n.
dow′dy·ish adj.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.dowdiness - having a drab or dowdy quality; lacking stylishness or elegance
drabness, homeliness
inelegance - the quality of lacking refinement and good taste
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
Translations

dowdiness

[ˈdaʊdɪnɪs] N → falta f de elegancia
Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

dowdiness

n → absoluter Mangel an Schick
Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

dowdiness

[ˈdaʊdɪnɪs] n → aspetto scialbo
Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995
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References in classic literature ?
Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness. One can always tell from a woman's bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.
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Indian literary festivals are modeled on the broader cultural festivals, especially film festivals, but without the traditional dowdiness of government-sponsored affairs.
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The House Sparrow, that ubiquitous urban small bird, is dowdy as a female and not really much less dowdy as a male, the dowdiness relieved by white cheeks and a black throat.
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The new station has removed the dowdiness of the old but the rebuilding has not created any significant extra train capacity and, as your correspondent has pointed out, access to and from the platforms at peak periods remains totally inadequate.
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For Fuller's contemporaries a natural expression of the emancipatedness of a woman would have been, it seems, a kind of sexlessness, dowdiness, and neglect of appearance.
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Furthermore, failure to comply with such restraining models of femininity will be communicated as an undesirable attitude or as Weber (2009d) convincingly states, a "letting-yourself-go disorder (occasioned by heightened dowdiness and insufficient self-care)" (p.
You're trans-mexi-fying right before our eyes: westernized bodily features and beauty practices in Ugly Betty
The narration shifts to the thoughts of Caroline, her sister-in-law, about how Laura will adjust to London life, whether she will marry, and the dowdiness of her clothes.
"Laura was not thinking": cognitive minimalism in Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes
Quite the opposite: as Jo Littler points out the young mother must now avoid at all costs the danger of 'dowdiness', and this requires many hours of hard work in retaining her sexual desirability at all times.
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Extra credit is due costume designer Ciera Wells and "special fashions" by Kristen Blomberg for kitting Violet and her friends out in just the right kind of prim but interesting A-line frocks and neat accessories that endow them with a pleasing mix of glamour and ladylike dowdiness.
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One of Vatican II's stated criteria for the garb of religious, besides hygiene, poverty and simplicity, was "attractiveness." Increasingly, sisters in ministerial orders questioned not only the attractiveness of their modified garb but the "witness value" of conspicuous dowdiness, especially in professional settings.
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The Liverpool-born playwright Peter Shaffer noted this and says: "We really like dowdiness in England.
Oxfam trades in its hand-me-down image
Barbara Burns concedes straightaway that she suffers from' a hint of dowdiness' and is assumed even by specialists sometimes to be 'dated and mediocre' (p.
The Prose Fiction of Louise von Francois (1817-1893)

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