Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A girl or woman regarded as dull, plain, or unfashionable.
- n. A person regarded as colorless and primly sedate.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To be rude to; insult; snub; rebuke.
- To fabricate or patch up (a tale).
- To be rude.
- To go about gossiping.
- To complain without cause.
- n. A taunt; a jeer; a flout; a snub.
- n. A lie.
- n. A dowdy woman or girl, particularly when also cross or ill-tempered; a hag.
- n. A gossip.
Wiktionary
- n. colloquial A frumpy person, somebody who is unattractive, drab or dowdy.
- n. The clothes that such a person would wear.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To insult; to flout; to mock; to snub.
- n. obsolete A contemptuous speech or piece of conduct; a gibe or flout.
- n. colloq. A cross, old-fashioned person; esp., an old woman; a gossip.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a dull unattractive unpleasant girl or woman
Etymologies
- Possibly short for Middle English frumple, wrinkle, from Middle Dutch verrompelen, to wrinkle : ver-, completely; see per1 in Indo-European roots + rompelen, to wrinkle. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I'll bet Bill Clinton took time out from his usual campaign "frump", picked up his cell phone, and gave Mr. Patterson a "little advice" about his choice of words to the media!!”
“But the "frump" will let herself and all her surroundings go to seed, not from humbleness of mind or an overwhelming sense of her own unworthiness, but in pure complacent conceit.”
“Okay, like everyone else, I too was staggered that such a seemingly trained voice should come out the mouth of a woman who's been dubbed a 'frump'.”
“Frizzle haired, doubled-chinned, bad teeth, wearing a dress that screamed 'frump'.”
“Not wanting to continue along that path, I put myself on simple, uncomplicated programs (including what's listed above), which helped me lose the weight, get strong and lean, improve my skin and "fight the frump.”
“Just because you remember Ann Taylor as the ultimate purveyor of frump, doesn't mean she still is.”
The Huffington Post: Style Section L.A.: Ready, Set, Shop: L.A.'s 5 Newest Fashion and Beauty Spots
“Now I am sure if I was worried about not appearing cool I would have went out of my way not to dress like a frump, or, talk about frumpy type topics, but (a big but) to go in the other direction and engage them on their level would have discredit my authority.”
“Wendi Peters as Jack's mother, opposing his engagement to Whitworth's daughter, blends Nora Batty's frowning frump with Les Dawson's drawn-down lip and the belligerently expanding bosom of an antagonised bullfrog into an instant comic classic.”
“Despite his lifelong passion for smart society women, he married an unmitigated frump: Johanna von Puttkamer, who dined at five, dressed unfashionably, and dodged every invitation the Bismarcks received for political and social engagements.”
“That aside, What Not To Wear does dispense useful advice during its half-hour duration, and the transformation of frump-to-flower is authentically heartwarming, more than can be said for anything in It's A Girl Thing (C4, Tue, 8pm), a misguided hybrid of catwalk and sitcom, clearly inspired by Sex And The City, but with fashion dilemmas in place of sexual ones.”
The Guardian: Charlie Brooker's Screen burn: What Not To Wear
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘frump’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Words that have gone out of fashion
words are fashionable -wane and wax - in usage. This is an open list of those words now out of fashion.
marconigram, flapper, bully, glockenspiel, periphrastic, bouffant, cackle, oldfangled, brigadoon, nohow, cat-salt, indecorous and 45 more...
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Wordplayer's Wonderful Words
chaparral, grotesque, knork, newsmonger, thitherwards, fackeltanz, kakistocracy, sforzando, compendium, frump, inquere, phosphene and 100 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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vocabulary
verisimilitude, pendulate, moxie, whimper, nary, stevedore, hubris, prodigious, super-injunction, injunction, lashings, fennel and 202 more...
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
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for words
based upon per- indo-european root
turnverein, veer, frump, far, per, paramount, paramour, parget, parterre, parvenu, perissodactyl, palanquin and 133 more...
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fliti's Words
panache, mushaboom, aubergine, serpentine, glimpse, schadenfreude, syzygy, plethora, zeitgeist, defenestrate, callipygian, ubiquitous and 239 more...
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pamelad's Words
lugubrious, antediluvian, decrepitude, anomaly, regurgitate, apoplexy, prolix, incapacitate, discontinuity, bellicose, inclement, frangible and 158 more...
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wacas words
convalesce, despicable, venality, anodyne, gosling, whorl, meretricious, lithe, metonymy, cavern, thoroughbred, frivolous and 44 more...
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Sluts, Bitches, and Goddesses
Words for women.
floozie, whore, cunt, tart, trull, ianfu, demimondaine, demimonde, ball-buster, ball-breaker, bar girl, b-girl and 84 more...
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The Inside Jokes
frump, defrock, birefringence, cabotage, westward, stye, tourniquet, leather, mansion, circumlocution, pneumonoultramicr..., haboob and 15 more...
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mcdougall
0wnage, pwnage, shine, spike, bob, prestroy, stupidguy, peachstroy, ha-cha, ka-cha, zz, frump
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Chocolate Factory Chapter 24, 25, 26,...
Vocabulary for Chapter's 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 & 30 of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
disturb, wretched, violently, scarlet, despair, hollow, rubbish, cross, precipice, intently, frump, staggered and 6 more...
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UMP
bump, clump, chump, dump, frump, grump, hump, jump, lump, mumps, pump, plump and 5 more...
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Favourite Insults
wanker, bozo, crackpot, twerp, smarty pants, clodhopper, blackguard, frump, wimp, bumpkin, dick head, chump and 37 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for frump.
brtom "Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point. Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled stockings."
Joyce, Ulysses, 13 Jan 14, 2007