dowdy

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

She wore dowdy skirts with equally drab cardigans.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2024

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. 22, 2023

“She’s proud, but I don’t believe she’d mind, for that dowdy tarlaton is all she has got. She may tear it tonight, and that will be a good excuse for offering a decent one.”

From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

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

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

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

Investors are finding refuge in dowdier names that have been ignored of late, like peanut butter maker J.M.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 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'll dress herself up carefully in the evening to sit at home alone with me, and go out to a big dinner party in the dowdiest gown she's got," he told me once.

From The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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

The men sallow, meagre, and wearing those trousers which, cut very wide and flappy at the ankles, make them the dowdiest men in the world.

From Half Portions by Edna Ferber