Link Centre Dictionary

dingy

UK/ˈdɪn.d͡ʒi/ US/ˈdɪndʒi/ uncommon informal rare

adjective

1.

thickly covered with ingrained dirt or soot

  • “a miner”
  • “;”
  • “;”
  • “;”
  • “;”
Synonyms
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2.

(of color) discolored by impurities; not bright and clear

  • “dirty”
  • “a dirty (or dingy) white”
  • “the muddied gray of the sea”
  • “muddy colors”
  • “dirty-green walls”
  • “dirty-blonde hair”
Synonyms
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3.

depressing in character or appearance

  • “drove through dingy streets”
  • “the dismal prison twilight” Charles Dickens
  • “drab old buildings”
  • “a dreary mining town”
  • “gloomy tenements”
  • “sorry routine that follows on the heels of death” B.A.Williams
Synonyms
Similar

Origin

From English dialectal (Kentish) dingy (“dirty”), of unknown origin, though probably from Middle English *dingy, dungy, from Old English *dyncgiġ (“covered with dung, dirty”), an umlaut form of duncge, dung (“dung”), equivalent to dung + -y, hence a doublet of dungy.

Phrases

  • dingy dart
  • dingy skipper

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.