drab
1 Americanadjective
-
dull; cheerless; lacking in spirit, brightness, etc.
-
having the color drab.
noun
-
dull gray; dull brownish or yellowish gray.
-
any of several fabrics of this color, especially of thick wool or cotton.
noun
-
a dirty, untidy woman; slattern.
-
a prostitute.
verb (used without object)
adjective
-
dull; dingy; shabby
-
cheerless; dreary
a drab evening
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of the colour drab
noun
-
a light olive-brown colour
-
a fabric of a dull grey or brown colour
noun
-
a slatternly woman
-
a whore
verb
Other Word Forms
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
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.
Vocabulary lists containing drab
Code Talker
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The Girl Who Drank the Moon
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Wolf Hollow
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
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
England remain in control of their destiny - but this was a drab encounter that brought them back down to earth with a bump.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026
With sad brown eyes, he offered drab, wordy pronouncements in a gentle voice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026
That sentiment can often seem true in a market where studio executives favor sequels and drab intellectual property over originality and fresh takes.
From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026
It had a smooth shell of drab green against which he clicked his fingernail.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Drifting down a corridor at her German school, a world that looks even drabber and uglier after the wonders she’s seen, this Priscilla seems lost in a dream, the most private of reveries.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2023
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
The dapper Huston interrupted a white-hot career streak — and an affair with Olivia de Havilland — for olive drab and an even drabber first assignment in the Aleutian Islands.
From New York Times ● Mar. 2, 2014
The vocalism of English is an inherently drabber thing than the vowel scale of French, yet English compensates for this drawback by its greater rhythmical alertness.
From Language An Introduction to the Study of Speech by Sapir, Edward
To which Forest fan Pete Bancroft replied: "I'll take the drabbest 1-0 win you've ever seen."
From BBC ● May 8, 2023
According to weather data analyzed by The Times, it really has been the drabbest winter Southern Californians have lived through recently.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 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
Naturally she was rather cheerful than somber, an involuntary gayety rose from her in the drabbest moments; she even defied Barzil Dunsack with ribbons and flowers on her bonnet.
From Java Head by Hergesheimer, Joseph
Our forefathers occasionally drabbed baulor, some of our people may still do such a thing, but only from compulsion.’
From The Romany Rye A Sequel to 'Lavengro' by Sampson, John
Our forefathers occasionally drabbed baulor; some of our people may still do such a thing, but only from compulsion.”
From The Romany Rye by Borrow, George Henry
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 Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir
“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 Watts, Theodore
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 Brooke, Rupert
‘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 Sampson, John
“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 Borrow, George Henry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
