DINGY (dingier, dingiest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: dingier    , dingiest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does dingy mean? 

• DINGY (adjective)
  The adjective DINGY has 3 senses:

1. thickly covered with ingrained dirt or soot

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

3. causing dejection

  Familiarity information: DINGY used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DINGY (adjective)

Comparative: dingier   
Superlative: dingiest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Thickly covered with ingrained dirt or soot

Synonyms:

begrimed; dingy; grimy; grubby; grungy; raunchy

Context example:

a grungy kitchen

Similar:

dirty; soiled; unclean (soiled or likely to soil with dirt or grime)

Derivation:

dinge; dinginess (discoloration due to dirtiness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

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

Synonyms:

dingy; dirty; muddied; muddy

Context example:

dirty-blonde hair

Similar:

impure (combined with extraneous elements)

Derivation:

dinge; dinginess (discoloration due to dirtiness)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Causing dejection

Synonyms:

blue; dark; dingy; disconsolate; dismal; drab; drear; dreary; gloomy; grim; sorry

Context example:

grim rainy weather

Similar:

cheerless; depressing; uncheerful (causing sad feelings of gloom and inadequacy)

 Context examples 

Back and shoulders were a warm brown that paled on the sides and underneath to a yellow that was dingy because of the brown that lingered in it.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

My uncle eased them and glanced at his watch as we saw the grey tiles and dingy red houses of Reigate in the hollow beneath us.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The low ceiling, smoke-blackened and dingy, was pierced by several square trap-doors with rough-hewn ladders leading up to them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and through the dingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was my first visit to the scene of the crime—a high, dingy, narrow-chested house, prim, formal, and solid, like the century which gave it birth.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had originally been alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house near Montagu Square, which was fearfully in want of painting; that he came very late of a day, and went away very early; that he never appeared to be consulted about anything; and that he had a dingy little black-hole of his own upstairs, where no business was ever done, and where there was a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink, and reported to be twenty years of age.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was the first time that the lawyer had been received in that part of his friend’s quarters; and he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness as he crossed the theatre, once crowded with eager students and now lying gaunt and silent, the tables laden with chemical apparatus, the floor strewn with crates and littered with packing straw, and the light falling dimly through the foggy cupola.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

There’s St. James’s, the big, dingy place with the clock, and the two red-coated sentries before it.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)