drab

¹ American  

[drab] / dræb /

adjective

drabber, drabbest

1. dull; cheerless; lacking in spirit, brightness, etc.

2. having the color drab.

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noun

1. dull gray; dull brownish or yellowish gray.

2. any of several fabrics of this color, especially of thick wool or cotton.

drab ² American  

[drab] / dræb /

noun

Archaic.

1. a dirty, untidy woman; slattern.

2. a prostitute.

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verb (used without object)

drabbed, drabbing

1. to associate with drabs.

drab ¹ British  

/ dræb /

adjective

1. dull; dingy; shabby

2. cheerless; dreary

   a drab evening

3. of the colour drab

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noun

1. a light olive-brown colour

2. a fabric of a dull grey or brown colour

drab ² British  

/ dræb /

noun

1. a slatternly woman

2. a whore

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verb

1. (intr) to consort with prostitutes

drab Idioms  

1. see dribs and drabs.

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Other Word Forms

• drabness
  noun
• drably
  adverb

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Etymology

Origin of drab¹

1535–45; < Middle French drap < Late Latin drappus piece of cloth

Origin of drab²

First recorded in 1505–15; perhaps akin to Dutch drab “dregs, lees,” obsolete Dutch drablen “to run or tramp about”; cf. drabble, draff

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Explanation

Dull, dreary, dingy, depressing: These adjectives capture the sense of drab, whether the word is used to describe a muted color, a miserable mood, or an oppressively boring existence. Have you ever heard of the color olive drab? It's the color the military clothes its soldiers in and is the original meaning of the word drab. A little over 100 years ago, people began using drab in the metaphorical sense to mean "dull" and "lacking brightness." If a website or an advertisement is drab, the page is boring and unattractive. If it is cold and rainy for a week, you'll get awfully tired of those drab days, and a great teacher can make even the drabbest book come to life.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

drab drabber drabbest drabbed drabbing

Ms. Edgar-Jones, who is by far the most likable of the lot, does well enough with the lead role but not well enough to rescue the movie, which is airless, charmless, leaden and drab.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

I like challenging assumptions that political people are drab and unglamorous — and that party people are brain-dead, escapist and have nothing to say.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2026

Unless you’re Steven Spielberg, with enough money and success to have final-cut privilege, everything in a franchise blockbuster is bound to look flat, feel drab, and be nauseatingly overexplained.

From Salon ● Aug. 20, 2026

The milestone, made possible by billions in private and government funding, was on display in the middle of the Idaho desert, where a cluster of drab hangars might otherwise go unnoticed.

From Barron's ● Jun. 28, 2026

She had done away with the drab ponytails, let her hair grow, and streaked it with red highlights.

From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini

Unfortunately, the visuals suffer from many scratches and dirt specks popping up on the screen, and the second film has too much soft focus and a much drabber color palette.

From Washington Times ● Apr. 30, 2022

Take away one of those elements, and the scene gets a little drabber.

From Slate ● Sep. 4, 2020

Honestly, could the premise for a feature-length story of middle-aged malaise and inchoate yearning be any drabber?

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 29, 2015

In its place is a drabber appraisal of the tournament by the numbers.

From Time ● Apr. 19, 2013

She had stepped out of drab and dreary routine only to enter a drabber and drearier one.

From The Pagan Madonna by W. H. D. (William Henry Dethlef) Koerner

The warming trend comes only a couple of months after Southern Californians endured one of the drabbest and wettest winter in recent memory.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2023

To which Forest fan Pete Bancroft replied: "I'll take the drabbest 1-0 win you've ever seen."

From BBC ● May 8, 2023

A new study has found that botanists' research inexorably skews toward showy plants, whereas the drabbest, dullest and shortest are often left behind—even if they are endangered.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 30, 2021

Should he mention his belief that Beth was the drabbest diminutive of Elizabeth?

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 12, 2018

Twilight was falling, there was a slight drizzle of rain and I told myself that I had stumbled on the drabbest bit of all London.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, March 12, 1919 by Various

Our forefathers occasionally drabbed baulor; some of our people may still do such a thing, but only from compulsion.”

From The Romany Rye by George Henry Borrow

But, as a rule, the pirate ruffled and bullied and drabbed without let or hindrance, until it was time for him to go back to his ship once more.

From The Green Flag by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

“That’s his way, child, to-day a tinker, to-morrow something else; and as for being drabbed, I don’t know what to say about it.” p.

From Lavengro The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest by William Knapp

“That’s his way, child, to-day a tinker, to-morrow something else; and as for being drabbed, I don’t know what to say about it.”

From Lavengro the Scholar - the Gypsy - the Priest by Theodore Watts

The day I went through, the interminable, oblique, thin rain took the gold out of the wheat and the brown from the distant fields and bushes, and drabbed all the colours in the grass.

From Letters from America by Rupert Brooke

‘Why, you have had a banquet of pork, and after the banquet Mrs. Chikno sang a song about drabbing baulor, so I naturally thought you might have lately been engaged in such a thing.’

From The Romany Rye A Sequel to 'Lavengro' by John Sampson

“Why, you have had a banquet of pork, and after the banquet, Mrs. Chikno sang a song about drabbing baulor, so I naturally thought you might have lately been engaged in such a thing.”

From The Romany Rye by George Henry Borrow

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Related Words

• bleak
• desolate
• dingy
• dismal
• dreary
• gray
• lackluster
• muddy
• run down
• shabby
• somber

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