different between frowsy vs frowst

English

Alternative forms

• frowzy

Etymology

Unknown, but perhaps related to the dialectal adjective frowsty. Attested since the 1680s.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?f?a?zi/

Adjective

frowsy (comparative frowsier, superlative frowsiest)

1. Having a dingy, neglected, and scruffy appearance.
   • 1916, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Chapter 3, [2]

     Frowsy girls sat along the curbstones before their baskets.

   • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One, Chapter 1, [3]

     He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not now remember) and had been stricken immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess it.

   See also citations under frowzy.

Translations

References

English

Alternative forms

• froust

Etymology

Back-formation from frowsty.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /f?a?st/
• Rhymes: -a?st

Noun

frowst (plural frowsts)

1. Stuffiness; stifling warmth in a room.
   • 1916, John Buchan, Greenmantle

     I was pretty bad myself, but managed to move about all the time, for the frowst in my cabin would have sickened a hippo.

Synonyms

• (stuffiness; stifling warmth): stuffiness
• fustiness

Translations

Verb

frowst (third-person singular simple present frowsts, present participle frowsting, simple past and past participle frowsted)

1. (intransitive) To enjoy being in a warm, close, stuffy place.
   • 1902, Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories

     The cure for this ill is not to sit still, / Or frowst with a book by the fire;

Translations