dingy
pronunciation
How to pronounce dingy in British English:
UK [ˈdɪndʒi]
How to pronounce dingy in American English:
US [ˈdɪndʒi]
-
- Adjective:
- thickly covered with ingrained dirt or soot
- (of color) discolored by impurities; not bright and clear
- depressing in character or appearance
Word Origin
- dingy
- dingy: [18] Nobody is quite sure where dingy comes from, but the very occasional occurrence of ding or dinge as Middle English forms of dung suggests that it may originally have signified ‘dung-coloured’ (although if it came from such a source it might have been expected to rhyme with springy rather than stingy). Dung [OE] itself appears to go back ultimately to an Indo-European base *dhengh- denoting ‘covering’ (relatives include the Lithuanian verb dengti ‘cover’), so its etymological significance is ‘material spread over the earth (for fertilization)’ rather than ‘excrement’.=> dung
- dingy (adj.)
- 1736, Kentish dialect, "dirty," of uncertain origin, but perhaps related to dung. The noun dinge (1816) is a back-formation.
Example
- 1. The government spent billions on a new international airport , additional metro lines and fresh landscaping along dingy delhi roads .
- 2. He had emerged into a dingy alley way that seemed to be made up entirely of shops devoted to the dark arts .
- 3. The belief that college matters very little is also ubiquitous : it echoes through the dingy mansions of american public discourse .
- 4. But consumer choice here in jilin and many other heartland cities is confined largely to the limited offerings of dingy state-run department stores and mom-and-pop shops .
- 5. They can earn several times more than chinese sex workers who are more likely to work out of a dingy massage parlor .