Friday, October 18, 2013

Word of the Day

blowzy \BLOU-zee\,
adjective:
1. having a coarse, ruddy complexion.
2. disheveled in appearance; unkempt.

I have seen scattered around the apartment photographs of a Gertrude Stein who wears her hair in a massive topknot, loose, blowzy, somewhat in disarray.
-- Monique Truong, "The Book of Salt," 2003

She restores her make-up there: she looks hot and blowzy. Her lipstick has bled into the soft skin round her mouth. Hairpins have sprung out. Her nose and eyelids shine.
-- A.S. Byatt, "Baglady," Elements, 1998

The origin of blowzy is uncertain, though it was perhaps once a cant term. It entered English in the 1700s.

Dictionary.com