Friday, August 07, 2015

Word of the day: blowzy

The word of the day is blowzy:

  1. having a coarse, ruddy complexion.
  2. disheveled in appearance; unkempt.
c.1770, from obsolete blouze (1570s), "wench, beggar's trull," perhaps originally a cant term. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blowzy)


"One of the funny, but doom-laden, elements in 'A Christmas Garland' is the mockery of Glasworthy's and Bennett's loquaciousness, which carried within it the seeds of the idea that anything big and long is blowsy."

 - Adam Gopnik, "The Comparable Max: Max Beerbohm's cult of the diminutive", 3 August 2015 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/03/the-comparable-max)


No, I'm not convinced that's what he meant.

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