drab1
/drab
/adjective (drabber, drabbest)
1Lacking brightness or interest; drearily dull: the landscape was drab and grey her drab suburban existence...
- Handicrafts have been directed not only to fulfil one's daily requirement but to add beauty and brightness in the otherwise dull and drab existence.
- Whatever this meeting brought, one thing for sure was that it would brighten my somewhat drab existence - my so-called life.
- It's the only point of interest in his excruciatingly drab life, which is rendered more unhappy by his incessant bullying at the hands of seven overbearing sisters.
Synonyms
colourless, grey, greyish, dull, dull-coloured, washed out, neutral, pale, muted, lacklustre, lustreless, muddy, watery;
lightish brown, brownish, brownish-grey, mousy, dun-coloured;
dingy, dreary, dismal, cheerless, gloomy, sombre, depressing
uninteresting, dull, boring, tedious, monotonous, dry, dreary, wearisome;
unexciting, bland, non-stimulating, unimaginative, uninspiring, uninspired, insipid, lustreless, lacklustre, vapid, flat, stale, trite, vacuous, feeble, pallid, wishy-washy, colourless, limp, lame, tired, lifeless, zestless, spiritless, sterile, anaemic, barren, tame, bloodless, antiseptic;
middle-of-the-road, run-of-the-mill, commonplace, mediocre, nondescript, characterless, mundane, unexceptional, unremarkable, humdrum, prosaic
2Of a dull light brown colour: drab camouflage uniforms...
- His hat matched his light brown, drab overcoat.
- They were dressed in their brown drab uniform with armor strapped over it and sporting open faced helmets; they were the enemy.
- As if dressing for their performance, the males turn from drab brown to a pale beige color that contrasts with the darker mud.
noun [mass noun]
1Fabric of a dull light brown colour.
1.1 (drabs) Clothes, especially trousers, made of drab: a young man dressed in drabs...
- They wore beige camouflage drabs, a black helmet, which also doubled as a gas mask, and wore revlar vests.
- They wore winter drabs, and I couldn't decide whether they were Australasian or Hoary-headed grebes.
- Oh, and don't forget heartburn suffered by many when an Army battle dress uniform was pressed upon us in exchange for the old olive drabs.
Derivatives
drably
/ adverb ...- This time she wasn't dressing as drably as possible.
- That headline reads like the title of a Monty Python sketch or an obscure, slightly funny but drably photographed art-house movie.
- ‘I was terrified that the first episode began so slowly and drably that it would put people off,’ he admits.
drabness
/ noun ...- I got the underpainting done today, experiencing the old feeling that a nice fresh drawing was being submerged in a more or less monotone drabness.
- Moreover, ways must be found to create communal urban space capable of mitigating the drabness and dreariness of most public housing developments.
- The contrast between the plain exterior and the immensely rich interior is like a sharp blow: perhaps an intended device to remind us of the drabness of the outer life and the vibrant richness of the inner life?
Origin
Mid 16th century (as a noun denoting undyed cloth): probably from Old French drap 'cloth' (see drape).
trappings from Late Middle English:
Animal traps (Old English) have nothing to do with trappings, which go back to Latin drappus ‘cloth’, the source of draper, drab [M16] originally undyed cloth, and drapery (Late Middle English). In the 14th century trappings were an ornamental harness for a horse, but now people more often use the word in contexts such as ‘the trappings of success’ for the outwards signs or objects associated with a particular role or job.
Rhymes
drab2
/drab/noun archaic
1A slovenly woman.
2A prostitute.
Origin
Early 16th century: perhaps related to Low German drabbe 'mire' and Dutch drab 'dregs'.