drab Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a dull greyish to yellowish or light olive brown
    olive drab.
  2. adjective satellite lacking in liveliness or charm or surprise
    dreary.
    • her drab personality
    • life was drab compared with the more exciting life style overseas
    • a series of dreary dinner parties
  3. adjective satellite lacking brightness or color; dull
    sober; somber; sombre.
    • drab faded curtains
    • sober Puritan grey
    • children in somber brown clothes
  4. adjective satellite of a light brownish green color
    olive-drab.
  5. adjective satellite causing dejection
    blue; dingy; drear; disconsolate; dreary; dark; gloomy; dismal; sorry; grim.
    • a blue day
    • the dark days of the war
    • a week of rainy depressing weather
    • a disconsolate winter landscape
    • the first dismal dispiriting days of November
    • a dark gloomy day
    • grim rainy weather

WordNet

Drab noun
Etymology
AS. drabbe dregs, lees; akin to D. drab, drabbe, dregs, G. treber; for sense 1, cf. also Gael. drabag a slattern, drabach slovenly. Cf. Draff.
Definitions
  1. A low, sluttish woman. King.
  2. A lewd wench; a strumpet. Shak.
  3. A wooden box, used in salt works for holding the salt when taken out of the boiling pans.
Drab intransitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Drabbed ; present participle & verbal noun Drabbing
Definitions
  1. To associate with strumpets; to wench. Beau. & Fl.
Drab noun
Etymology
F. drap cloth: LL. drappus, trapus, perh. orig., a firm, solid stuff, cf. F. draper to drape, also to full cloth; prob. of German origin; cf. Icel. drepa to beat, strike, AS. drepan, G. treffen; perh. akin to E. drub. Cf. Drape, Trappings.
Definitions
  1. A kind of thick woolen cloth of a dun, or dull brownish yellow, or dull gray, color; -- called also drabcloth.
  2. A dull brownish yellow or dull gray color.
Drab adjective
Definitions
  1. Of a color between gray and brown. -- n. A drab color.

Webster 1913