dumpy
dumpy Lexical Profile
dumpy Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
North American Dingy, shabby, dirty, or dilapidated in appearance (especially of a building, room, or establishment).
"After driving all night, they checked into a dumpy roadside motel with peeling wallpaper and flickering neon lights."
Short and stout; having a squat, thickset, and somewhat ungraceful figure or shape.
"The antique teapot had a charmingly dumpy shape with a short spout and a wide base."
Melancholy, sulky, or dejected; down in the dumps.
"He felt rather dumpy and listless all afternoon while waiting for the rain to clear."
• Rhymes for dumpy
Word Origin & Etymology
First recorded in the mid-18th century in the sense 'short and stout,' derived from an earlier sense of 'dump' meaning a thick, shapeless mass; the informal sense 'shabby or rundown' emerged in early 20th-century American English from 'dump' in the sense of a garbage heap.