frump

American  

[fruhmp] / frʌmp /

noun

1. a person who is dowdy, drab, and unattractive.

2. a dull, old-fashioned person.

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frump British  

/ frʌmp /

noun

1. a woman who is dowdy, drab, or unattractive

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Other Word Forms

• frumpish
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of frump

First recorded in 1545–55; origin uncertain

Example Sentences

The rest insist I am a joyless frump.

From The Guardian • Jan. 7, 2019

Bean duck boots, largely vertical hair that he says “looks like rats nested on my scalp,” and thick-framed Le Corbusier glasses purchased in Paris that are somewhat at war with the home-office frump.

From Washington Post • Oct. 27, 2017

In film after film, Mr. Gabler writes, she’d go “from mieskeit to beauty” — mieskeit is Yiddish for an ugly person, a frump — “from an outsider to a guiding light.”

From New York Times • Apr. 20, 2016

With too much nerve, you are a fashion victim; without enough, you’re a frump.

From The New Yorker • Dec. 1, 2015

As be did this, another arrow came whirr and frump, but this one buried all except its feathers in the grass, and stayed still, as if it had never moved.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White