dowdy

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

From Salon ● Jun. 27, 2026

The company also saw that its selection was dowdy and uninspiring.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 19, 2026

Unthinkable as it seems, Edna was dowdy then, given to mousy brown hair and pillbox hats.

From New York Times ● Apr. 22, 2023

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

She was a fat, dowdy, middle-aged woman with black hair and a slight moustache, but she was made of human flesh.

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

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

I hear she went to the Opera on Monday night, and told Tommy Rufford at supper that, as far as she could see, London Society was entirely made up of dowdies and dandies. lord goring. 

From An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

Well, perhaps if we take care of the dowdies and the butchers and the bakers, the beauties and the bigwigs will take care of themselves.

From Press Cuttings by Bernard Shaw

Thanks to you, I have now got a conviction that this woman question is not a question of lovely and accomplished females, but of dowdies.

From Press Cuttings by Bernard Shaw

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

And the dowdier the ladies and the less he had to do with them the prouder were they.

From A Traitor's Wooing by Headon Hill

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

This night the actors came on the stage in more—or less—than ordinary dress; as men look when they have put on their dowdiest, for bad weather or dirty work: and these men wore their hats.

From Tired Church Members by Anna Bartlett Warner

She glanced with almost maliciousness at Alice, who, in the dowdiest of pale-gray dresses, with her hair rather untidy and her face destitute of color, was standing near one of the windows.

From The Rebel of the School by L. T. Meade

“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