Margo's Kitchen

Frowzly, it’s just fun to say! It’s a quirky, old-fashioned word that doesn’t pop up often in everyday conversation, but it’s still fun to know about!

“Frowzly” is an adjective that means something is messy, untidy, or in a state of disarray. Imagine your hair after a windy day or your room when you’ve been too busy to clean it. That’s frowzly. It’s not just about being messy, though; it often suggests that the mess has been there for a while and looks a little more chaotic than usual.

The word frowzly isn’t very common today, but it has roots in the Middle Ages and comes from the word frowzy, which also means dirty or unkempt. If you ever come across frowzly, now you’ll know it’s a fun, old-school way to describe something that’s a bit out of order!

So next time your room looks like a tornado hit it, or your hair is out of control, you can use frowzly to give it a unique description!

Late one night, when the widowed Aunt Priscilla considered her long, childless life and how she might interact with the young, orphaned Doris in chapter three of, A Little Girl in Old Boston, by Amanda Minnie Douglas, she thought about how none of her relations leaned on her.

Yet somehow the life had never seemed real solitary until now. She had comforted her years with the thought that children were a great deal of trouble and did not always turn out well. She could see the picture of the little foreign girl made as she folded her arms on Foster Leverett’s knee. She wouldn’t have that mop of frowzly hair flying about, and she would like to fat her up a little – she was rather peaked. She had imagined her going about in this old place, sewing, learning to work properly, reading and studying, and going to church every Sabbath. She had really meant to do something for a human being day after day, not in a spasmodic fashion. And this was the end of it.