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dusty

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dusty¹

  • /ˈdʌsti/

Sounds like dustee · Rhymes with -ʌsti

Where it comes from

From Middle English dusty, dusti, from Old English dūstiġ, dystiġ, dȳstiġ (“dusty”), equivalent to dust + -y. Cognate with Dutch donzig (“cottony, downy, woolly”), German dunstig (“hazy, misty”).

adjective dustier · dustiest

  1. Covered with dust. a dusty carpet

    Similar: dust-ridden

  2. Powdery and resembling dust.
  3. Grey or greyish. a dusty peach color
  4. figuratively Old; outdated; stuffily traditional. The very smart practitioners of my acquaintance do not rest their right hand on old dusty knowledge, but bend and move along a ground of being in which they are perpetually on the lookout for what is trusty and true, new and old.
  5. slang Ugly, disgusting (a general term of abuse).
  6. UK, slang, in negative constructions Ugly, unwell, inadequate, bad. ...the toilet-glass on the table...had probably reflected few such faces as that of the lady calling herself Mrs. Lloyd, who looked attentively into it when she found herself alone and decided that she was not so very dusty, considering

noun dusties

  1. A medium-brown color. The orange shades ranged from brilliant to soft; pinks from delicate little-girl hues to strong dusties; yellows were soft buttermilks to ochre; reds ran from scarlets to bloods;
  2. An old bottle of spirits that has been kept for a long time. A lighter, less expensive version—The White Label—was taken off the market in 2016. But dusties can still be found.
  3. informal A miller (from the image of millers being covered in flour dust). I do not like to see too much strife between dusties on the short and long system question, as it is liable to cause hard feelings.
  4. slang A supply petty officer. The mess was so overcrowded that hammock-slinging space became the perks of the badgemen the “jack-dusties” invariably slept in their store-rooms and offices.
  5. A recording of music from another era, especially R&B; an oldie. In Los Angeles, listeners can tune in to KACE, the "dusties" station that plays music from the '50s, '60s and '70s;
  6. An old person, especially one who is unwilling to change with the times. United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Agriculture--Environmental and Consumer Protection Appropriations
  7. A person of mixed race who has a swarthy complexion. There are scarcely any Indo-Europeans of pure blood in Peru, for with the exception of pure Indians in the interior, the population consists of mestizos, Zambos, mulattoes, terceroones, terceroones, quadroons, cholos, musties, fusties, and dusties; crosses between Spaniards and negroes, Spaniards an
  8. A migrant farmer from the dustbowl. And pretty much the same time, you started to hear about dusties down in states like California and Arizona: farmers who'd had to leave their farms because of drought, people in towns with no more water.
  9. A dustman. One Council put that principle into practice some five years ago when it changed from a refuse collection system employing its own 'dusties' to one based upon tenders from private contractors.
  10. rare A duststorm. […] dust storms, does it? Well, nothing like what it used to have: One spring the dusties blew so thick We staked five claims above Clay Crick Fifty foot high in the fallow air. Blows lots worse on the prairie.
  11. in plural, possibly A clump of dust; a dust bunny. Sparse iron gray hair, stuck on his egg-shaped head like dusties from the vacuum bag, cold pewter eyes in little round metal-rimmed glasses, a sharp, hard nose, a mouth like a slot.

Dusty²

Where it comes from

Derived from Dustin.

proper noun

  1. A diminutive of the male given name Dustin.

Dusty³

Where it comes from

Derived from dusty, from the tendency of persons engaged in the milling of flour to become covered with flour dust.

proper noun

  1. UK a nickname for someone with the surname Miller

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: dirty, unclean, soiled, dust-covered, scrambled, dust, unpaved, gritty, ashy, chalky, powdery, sandy, arid, dry, grubby, filthy

Translations

Every language

adj covered with dust

Españolpolvoriento, polvoroso
日本語ほこりっぽい hokorippoi
中文塵封 /尘封 chénfēng
Portuguêspoeirento, empoeirado
Françaispoussiéreux
Deutschstaubig
Italianopolveroso, impolverato
Русскийпы́льный pýlʹnyj, запылённый zapyljónnyj, запорошённый zaporošónnyj
Tiếng Việtbụi bặm

adj powdery and resembling dust

Portuguêspoeirento
Deutschstaubig
Italianopolveroso, impolverato
Русскийразмельчённый razmelʹčónnyj, порошкообра́зный poroškoobráznyj

adj grey in parts

Русскийсерова́тый serovátyj, блёклый bljóklyj

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MLA

"dusty." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/dusty. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

dusty. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/dusty

Chicago

"dusty." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/dusty.

BibTeX
@misc{dusty_2026,
  title = {dusty},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/dusty},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}