dinginess
nounUK /ˈdɪndʒɪnəs/
Etymology From dingy + -ness.
1
Usually The state or quality of being dingy.
- His nether garments were of a blueish gray—violent in its colours once, but sobered now by age and dinginess—and were so stretched and strained in a tough conflict between his braces and his straps, that they appeared every moment in danger of flying asunder at the knees.1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 4, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC, page 34:
- He was a pitiful image of shabby gentility and the dinginess of “reduced circumstances.”1871 March–April, Henry James, Jr., “A Passionate Pilgrim”, in A Passionate Pilgrim, and Other Tales, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, […], published 31 January 1875, →OCLC, chapter 2, page 110:
2 more examples
- The streets were thunderous; a vast energy heaved under the universal coating of dinginess.1918, Booth Tarkington, chapter 31, in The Magnificent Ambersons, Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co., page 437:
- The cramped dinginess of such important stations as Grantham and Peterborough has to be experienced to be believed.1944 November and December, Talisman, “A Broadening Horizon”, in Railway Magazine, page 340: