dowdy

LONDON—Private credit giants have found a $1 trillion-plus source of capital to invest: dowdy old British pensions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 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. 21, 2023

So pinched and prim like she was, I could tell she was on a fast road to becoming a dowdy old matron.

From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan

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

Dowdies, dowdies won't do for European courts, Paris especially.

From Women of America Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 10 (of 10) by John Rouse Larus

Let dowdies simper, and let bumpkins stare, 240 The strolling pageant hero treads in air: Pleased, for his hour he to mankind gives law, And snores the next out on a truss of straw.

From Poetical Works by Charles Churchill

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

After more than a decade of celebrity glitz and lavishly underwritten partying, Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is shaping up to be a slimmed-down, more sober, slightly dowdier affair.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 26, 2017

Her ’60s references were the austere, dowdier ones: Jackie Kennedy in black couture silk for a visit to the Vatican rather than Twiggy stick figures.

From New York Times ● Sep. 21, 2012

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

“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

The first-class waiting-room is dull to a fearful degree, and furnished in the dowdiest style of economy. 

From Rides on Railways by Samuel Sidney

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