Meaning

3 senses
  1. Dark, dull.

  2. Shabby, squalid, uncared-for.

  3. (informal, rare)Resembling or characteristic of a ding (the sound).

More definitions
  • thickly covered with ingrained dirt or soot
  • (of color) discolored by impurities; not bright and clear; ‘dirty’ is often used in combination
  • causing dejection

Examples

3 sentences
  1. Tom lives in a dingy Boston apartment.

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  2. The laundry detergent with bleach, that Mary selected, was developed to brighten dingy whites.

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  3. Lacking proper lighting, Tammy's room was depressingly dingy.

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Origin

From English dialectal (Kentish) dingy (“dirty”), of unknown origin, though probably from

From English dialectal (Kentish) dingy (“dirty”), of unknown origin, though probably from Middle English *dingy, dungy, from Old English *dyncgiġ (“covered with dung, dirty”), an umlaut form of duncge, dung (“dung”), equivalent to dung + -y, hence a doublet of dungy.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

dingier, dingiest
Comparativedingier Lesson
Superlativedingiest Lesson

regular

Synonyms

31 synonyms
Close in meaning

Antonyms

2 antonyms

Word family

7 related words

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
dingy — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto