dingy

adj

1. Dark, dull.

   “The station has been refurbished both at ground level and below ground, where the wide, fluorescently lit platforms are an almost unrecognisable metamorphosis of the dingy, reeking Low Level of old.”

2. Shabby, squalid, uncared-for.

   “He led her through dingy wareroom after wareroom, counting-house after counting-house, where the clerks all were silent and subdued. He led her at last into a dingy sanctum, dimly lighted by one shaded lamp. In this safe there were piles of dingy papers and more dingy ledgers; […]”

   “She's looking from Tarquin to Fenella with shining eyes, and I look at the picture interestedly over her shoulder. But to be honest, I can't say I'm impressed. For a start it's really dingy – all sludgy greens and brown”

3. (informal, rare)Resembling or characteristic of a ding.

   “I love it when they hit. You know the sound when they hit? That dingy sound, it’s like faster, and contained somehow? That’s a great sound. Happens like a fraction of a second before you know what you’ve hit, before you figure it out.”

   “I remember we had a small electronic toy that had hot lines and made dingy sounds where you tried to eat all the pellets before the boxes with yellow inside them got you. Father said this was one of the first toys ever to be made and we were awe-struck by it.”

   “They was a button on that thar computer what said ‘Enter’. I pushed it ’cause I figgered it must be a doorbell. It didn’t make no dingy sound though.”

noun

1. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of dinghy.

verb

1. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of dinghy.