dinginess

English

Etymology

dingy +‎ -ness

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdɪndʒɪnəs/

• Audio (US)

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Noun

dinginess (usually uncountable, plural dinginesses)

1. The state or quality of being dingy.
   • 1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 4, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC, page 34:

     His nether garments were of a blueish gray—violent in its colours once, but sobered now by age and dinginess—and were so stretched and strained in a tough conflict between his braces and his straps, that they appeared every moment in danger of flying asunder at the knees.

   • 1871 March–April, Henry James, Jr., “A Passionate Pilgrim”, in A Passionate Pilgrim, and Other Tales, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, […], published 31 January 1875, →OCLC, chapter 2, page 110:

     He was a pitiful image of shabby gentility and the dinginess of “reduced circumstances.”

   • 1918, Booth Tarkington, chapter 31, in The Magnificent Ambersons‎^[1], Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co., page 437:

     The streets were thunderous; a vast energy heaved under the universal coating of dinginess.

   • 1944 November and December, Talisman, “A Broadening Horizon”, in Railway Magazine, page 340:

     The cramped dinginess of such important stations as Grantham and Peterborough has to be experienced to be believed.