frowsy

American  

[frou-zee] / ˈfraʊ zi /

Or frousy

adjective

frowsier, frowsiest

1. frowzy.

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Other Word Forms

• frowsily adverb
• frowsiness noun

Explanation

Someone who's frowsy looks like a slob. If you go to a job interview looking frowsy, you're less likely to get the job than if you comb your hair and wear a tidy suit. If you sleep in your clothes so that you can roll out of bed in the morning and walk right out the door to catch a bus for school, you're in danger of looking frowsy. Frowsy people are untidy and scruffy — sometimes even dirty, with unwashed hair and grubby fingernails. Frowsy and its variation frowzy probably come from the now-obsolete adjective frowsty, "having an unpleasant smell."

Example Sentences

But it’s that second performance, a frowsy FBI agent named Terry Husk, that really stuns you, because it’s Jude Law, going darker than ever.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 6, 2024

She mentions 1989’s Steel Magnolias, in which she played a frowsy southern misfit behind thick, horn-rimmed specs.

From The Guardian • Jun. 21, 2015

The lush mane was ratted and backcombed into a frowsy beehive, the kind in which hoodlums of legend used to conceal their razor blades.

From New York Times • Jul. 27, 2011

Kansan No. 3 spoke from the stage of Manhattan's frowsy Manhattan Opera House.

From Time Magazine Archive

I push past him into the cramped, frowsy cottage.

From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin