Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Wiktionary
- adj. Moldy or musty.
- adj. stale-smelling or stuffy.
- adj. figuratively, by extension old-fashioned, refusing to change or update.
- adj. of wine Tasting of the cask.
GNU Webster's 1913
WordNet 3.0
- adj. old-fashioned and out of date
- adj. stale and unclean smelling
Etymologies
- Old French fust ("cask") (modern French fût), from Latin fustis ("a cudgel") (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French fust, piece of wood, wine cask, from Latin fūstis, stick, club. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The stem snapped in half years ago, and its case is worn, but it still exudes a kind of fusty dignity.”
“It's become a kind of fusty shtick it conjures up the voices of Carl Kasell and Charles Osgood.”
“Weds Letters), I would suggest the expression for responding to a post, when even as you're writing, you suspect they just put it there to provoke the kind of fusty response you're now drafting, but you're just too pedantic to stop yourself commenting, should be known as post-imprissionism.”
“It affected families too: I had one grandfather at Pearl for the duration as a radio operator while my paternal grandfather, an engineer, no sooner had a rare beer on V-E Day (he was a fusty old lower-middle-class Southern Baptist bigot, a charming grandfather and good with kids, but those other things too in a run of trumps) than he got to spend an extra year in the service rebuilding infrastructure in the Philippines.”
“It was important to me to demonstrate this, because I anticipated correctly that there'd be a slew of fusty cultural critics -- crushing bores all -- who would clutch their pearls and frantically decry Stewart/Colbert's efforts as "unserious.”
The Huffington Post: 'Rally To Restore Sanity' Critics Unite To Offer America Pretentious Whining
“As a result, many hotels and restaurants have been dusting off the fusty image of the cigar terrace as the haunt of the lugubrious old gent, and are making stylish, modern spaces, with added attractions such as DJs, cashmere blankets and outdoor fireplaces.”
The Wall Street Journal: Dusting Off the Stogie's Stodgy Image
“What's clear is that the fusty image has gone, and there is an added element of fun to many of the wine rooms.”
“On Christmas Eve, whilst my parents had gone out to the evening mass, whilst One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing played on the television, I had under the bed to avoid having to kiss her goodnight, to avoid feeling those slobbering lips press my cheek, or to smell the fusty smell of old age.”
“The Kings had also chafed at the fusty tropes of legal dramas, chief among them witnesses breaking down on the stand—file under Mason, Perry—and the passionate closing argument that saves the day and saves the defendant's bacon.”
“When I was in my early twenties and not at all keen on British classics, which seemed fusty and long-winded to me then, Forster was the only author who saved the day.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fusty’.
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Stink Different™
What-the-smell is that?
hircine, jumentous, hyena butter, cadaverine, new car smell, teen spirit, parosmia, hircismus, ylang-ylang, burnt hair, hydrogen sulfide, gay bomb and 115 more...
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Y
What a -Y does to an otherwise common, dull word
zany, waxy, wavy, arty, chewy, bony, boxy, cozy, nosy, foxy, wiry, junky and 321 more...
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moshe's list
prelapsarian, ear-rent, fusty, fray, foible, smug, abeyance, misandry, inkhorn, incarnate, argot
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A whooshing of turpentine up my nostrils
Descriptors to use at your next wine-tasting
sawdusty, barnyardy, igneous, graphitic, impolitic, noisome, eldritch, lovecraftian, beanfeastish, spidery, impious, daft and 63 more...
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Verecund, flivver, etc
Just some words I happen to enjoy. Some thread-worn, some not.
yegg, yob, verecund, amatory, fermata, threepenny, gruntled, flivver, gamboge, decolletage, ordure, nudnik and 175 more...
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jeffreytwhitney's list
abecedarian, assonance, prolix, avuncular, baleful, borborygmus, accismus, atavism, catachresis, coruscant, callipygian, carbuncle and 117 more...
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Words
teeter, headlong, reprobate, canard, ersatz, prevaricate, trenchant, minatory, fatuous, stultify, vitiate, fulminate and 135 more...
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Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young ...
These words are from Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady, 1747-48
adumbrate, virago, varlet, rencounter, akimbo, palliate, amanuensis, amok, equipage, cully, se'ennight, resentments and 560 more...
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words
pointingstock, kibosh, turnspit, ant-bear, earthborn, pitter, infold, hayseed, stoker, prismatic, backcross, blizzard and 96 more...
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Joe's list
Fissiparous Weekly Standard Nigeria a fissiparous country 3/2012
fissiparous, inchoate, punctilious, synecdoche, apocryphal, superadd, pedant, pedagogy, astigmatic, inter alia, aphoristically, eponymous and 131 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1459 more...
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Wordwild's Delights
Delightful words to read and use
plangent, ribald, titubant, sidereal, pelagic, improvident, dolorous, parlous, baleful, precatory, pied, mephitic and 247 more...
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bobfet1's Words
anathema, schadenfreude, sturm und drang, dadaism, serendipitous, obfuscate, kibosh, salacious, misogyny, kismet, madrasah, circumlocute and 129 more...
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The Golem's Eye
Words and phrases from Jonathan Stroud's book, The Golem's Eye.
ordure, widdershins, cop, stipple, ostler, struts, minaret, chemise, remonstrate, concussion, wicket, vamoose and 249 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Amusing words
interesting words
bonce, furcate, tapioca, tillage, desalinate, garish, litmus, roadhog, azoic, haberdasher, imbroglio, polliwog and 802 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for fusty.

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