dowdy

When Bertha’s down-to-earth sister, Monica, threatens to ruin the overall aesthetic with a dowdy frock, some light sabotage leads Monica to accept Bertha’s previously worn Season 1 gown.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026

The stocks powering them are neither dowdy bargains nor typical of a developing country.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026

Especially because, with this dull, dowdy current iteration dragging its cape into theaters, it already has.

From Salon ● Jun. 27, 2026

The character of Dame Edna began as a dowdy Mrs. Norm Everage who first took to the stage in Humphries’ hometown of Melbourne in the mid-1950s.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 21, 2023

Bod, in his grey winding sheet, felt dowdy and drab.

From "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman

The actress dowdies up her portrayal with a glumly unsmiling demeanor and the flat, poignantly cynical vocal delivery of the nerd who’s smarter — and more annoying — than everyone else in the room.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 20, 2016

Julie Andrews, Carol Channing, Ann Margret, Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave and Raquel Welch are the other distinguished dowdies, but it's not really their fault.

From Time Magazine Archive

Dowdies, dowdies won't do for European courts, Paris especially.

From Women of America Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 10 (of 10) by John Rouse Larus

I know but two duchesses in this wide world who are not dowdies, and one of them is an American.

From Parrot & Co. by Harold MacGrath

Let dowdies simper, and let bumpkins stare, 240 The strolling pageant hero treads in air: Pleased, for his hour he to mankind gives law, And snores the next out on a truss of straw.

From Poetical Works by Charles Churchill

Investors are finding refuge in dowdier sectors such as consumer staples.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

It remains to be seen whether Americans will be more willing to wear dowdier, less comfortable but more effective masks to protect themselves and others.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 27, 2020

As the nation’s legislators made their way into the Capitol, glad-handing and back-slapping, the camera’s sweep of the room showed a dowdier, duller and grimmer looking audience than is usual.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 30, 2018

It occupies a purpose-built new building, a great whorl of glass and golden stone, a few hundred yards from the PPE philosophers’ dowdier premises.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 23, 2017

Out at elbows, out at toes, Out at knees, the urchin goes: Still he laughs, and still he grows Rowdier, dowdier, I suppose.

From The Nursery, March 1873, Vol. XIII. A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People by Various

It was arguably the dowdiest of Britain’s major charities — its highest-profile patron has long been Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth’s daughter.

From New York Times ● Jul. 14, 2018

Even in a down economy there's no shortage of potential buyers for even the dowdiest of franchises.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 17, 2010

“She is the dowdiest thing I ever saw.”

From Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie Great Times in the Land of Cotton by Alice B. Emerson

This carriage was a very fine one, and in it sat three of the ugliest, dowdiest, worst dressed females I ever saw.

From A Confederate Girl's Diary by Sarah Morgan Dawson

The first-class waiting-room is dull to a fearful degree, and furnished in the dowdiest style of economy. 

From Rides on Railways by Samuel Sidney