dowdiness

• “Nor is there the slightest need that this kind of dressing involve "dowdiness," or "slouchiness," a characteristic abhorrent to every true woman.”

  The Education of American Girls

• “Miss Savage, he says, was short, fat, had hip disease, and “that kind of dowdiness which I used to associate with ladies who had been at school with my mother.”

  Samuel Butler: Diogenes of the Victorians

• “Susan Boyle lives with her cat, is unemployed, a church volunteer, has a high dowdiness quotient, no hairdo except gray and wild.”

  Shambhala SunSpace » John Tarrant – Escape Arts in Delusionville

• “Stay-at-home moms have a reputation for dowdiness that is completely undeserved.”

  The Huffington Post: Greg Olear: 8 Reasons Why Stay-at-Home Dads Are Better Than Stay-at-Home Moms

• “During a long interview in a Soho hotel whose plushness seems surreal after the institutional dowdiness of the court where his and Harry Redknapp's fates were decided, Mandaric tries to keep his resolution, not to criticise the City of London Police or Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, who conducted the investigations into him.”

  The Guardian: Milan Mandaric: 'I would be lying if I said it isn't hurting me'

• “The mission: Spruce up a brand long plagued with a reputation for dowdiness among upwardly mobile European buyers.”

  The Wall Street Journal: Spiffing Up Opel's Image to Test GM

• “Half-veiled hats adorned their visage, while still carrying a bit of dowdiness with them, at least to the young boy.”

  Fictionaut: The Strange Tantes

• “The retailer's changeover from cheap dowdiness to affordable fashion was under way.”

  The Wall Street Journal: Old Habits Die Hard

• “In the hit movie "The Devil Wears Prada," Andy Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway, has the innocence (and dowdiness) beaten out of her by the terror-inducing fashion editor played by Meryl Streep.”

  The Wall Street Journal: Scenes With the Secretary

• “It was a countenance alight, the dowdiness given off by her unfashionable apparel fading into the background.”

  Fictionaut: Gatlinburg

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