drabness

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The strict realism runs the risk of drabness; the novel’s title, for instance, is so forgettable that I have had to look it up three times in the writing of this review.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 26, 2025

Instead, brown, gray, beige and white are dominant, an achromatic palette whose gloomy drabness is only relieved by the surprisingly wide variety of neutrals the artist employs.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 31, 2023

“With her higher-than-high hemlines, colorful tights and masculine tailored trousers, she helped wipe out British postwar drabness and create a bold new attitude to dressing.”

From Washington Post • Apr. 13, 2023

Or so we have been taught: that lushness equals splendor, that when a blossom wilts and fails, the plant that bore it is finished, returned to drabness, spent of purpose.

From New York Times • Oct. 11, 2019

Even in Scotland, he takes us by preference to some lost mansion standing in grotesque contrast to the "great drabness of prosperity which overspreads the world."

From Old and New Masters by Lynd, Robert