drafty
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of drafty
Explanation
If you can feel a chilly breeze in your bedroom even though the windows are closed, the room is drafty. Drafty spaces tend to make you shiver and grab an extra sweater. The adjective drafty comes from draft, which meant "drawing or pulling" before it also came to mean "flow of a current of air." You'll most often find drafty describing rooms, buildings, and other enclosed spaces, like drafty tents, drafty schools, and drafty offices. In Britain, the spelling of this word reflects the way people used to pronounce it: draughty.
Vocabulary lists containing drafty
New Kid
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The Skin I'm In
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The Magician's Nephew
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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.
Drafty windows let in frigid Ottawa winter air and the house lacks central air conditioning for the summer months.
From BBC • Apr. 12, 2023
Captain Will Matthews tweeted: "Tired of living like this. Cupboards unusable due to never ending damp/mould. Drafty windows. No loft insulation, cold house all the time."
From BBC • Dec. 14, 2022
Drafty windows and doors that make your home cold in the winter can also make it hotter in the summer, so seal them with weather stripping, caulk or spray foam.
From New York Times • Jul. 22, 2022
In Boulder County, Colo., students are taught about energy efficiency through characters like Kilowatt Kid, Count Plugula and Dr. Drafty.
From Scientific American • Feb. 15, 2012
Drafty: worthless, vile; no better than draff or dregs; from the Anglo-Saxon, "drifan" to drive away, expel.
From The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems by Purves, D. Laing
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.
