Definition of "frowzy" [frow•zy]

• Unkempt; slovenly: frowzy clothes; a frowzy professor. (adjective)
• Having an unpleasant smell; musty: a frowzy pantry. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "And truly I saw Johnny Upright, and his good wife and fair daughters, and frowzy slavey, like so many ghosts flitting eastward through the gloom, the monster city roaring at their heels."
• "There we were, in our Sunday best, watching the frowzy drowsy fille advance to the west."
• "And here to the doorstep came the "slavey," very frowzy and very perplexed, to tell me that the missus would let me come back and wait in the kitchen."