different between frowsty vs frosty

English

Adjective

frowsty (comparative frowstier, superlative frowstiest)

1. (Britain) musty; stuffy (atmosphere)
   • 1918, Siegried Sassoon, "A Working Party" in The Old Huntsman and Other Poems, New York: Dutton & Co., lines 41-44, [1]

     He thought of getting back by half-past twelve, / And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep / In draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumes / Of coke, and full of snoring weary men.

   • 1933, H. G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, Book 4, Chapter 5, [2]

     Man, he says, was still "frowsty-minded" and "half asleep" in the early twenty-first century, still in urgent danger of a relapse into the confused nightmare living of the Age of Frustration.

   • 1950, C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Collins, 1998, Chapter 10,

     So Mrs. Beaver and the children came bundling out of the cave, all blinking in the daylight, and with earth all over them, and looking very frowsty and unbrushed and uncombed and with the sleep in their eyes.

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English frosty, forsty, from Old English forsti?, fyrsti? (“frosty”), from Proto-West Germanic *frostag, *frust?g, equivalent to frost +? -y. Cognate with West Frisian froastich (“frosty”), Dutch vorstig (“frosty”), German Low German fröstig (“frosty”), German frostig (“frosty”), Swedish frostig (“frosty”). Compare also Saterland Frisian froasterch (“frosty”), German Low German frösterg (“frosty”).

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?sti

Adjective

frosty (comparative frostier, superlative frostiest)

1. Cold, chilly.

   The air was frosty; I could see my breath and walked quickly with my hands in my pockets.

   I'd like a frosty milkshake.

2. Having frost on it.

   The frosty pumpkin is the sign of the end of the growing season, soon the greenery will wither and harvest end for the year.

3. (figuratively) Having an aloof or inhospitable manner.

   After the divorce, she was civil but frosty to her ex.

Translations

Derived terms

• frosty one
• stay frosty

Middle English

Alternative forms

• frosti, forsty

Etymology

From Old English forsti?, from Proto-West Germanic *frostag, equivalent to frost +? -y. Compare Old English fyrsti?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?fr?sti?/, /?f?rsti?/

Adjective

frosty

1. Cold, freezing, frosty; being or experiencing cold.
2. (rare) White (of a beard)

Descendants

• English: frosty
• Scots: frosty

References

• “frost?, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-11-02.