drab
Meanings
- A fabric, usually of thick cotton or wool, having a dull brownish yellow, dull grey, or dun colour.
- The color of this fabric.
- Often in the plural form drabs: apparel, especially trousers, made from this fabric.
- A dull or uninteresting appearance or situation, unremarkable.
- Of the color of some types of drabcloth: dull brownish yellow or dun.
- Particularly of color: dull, uninteresting.
- A dirty or untidy woman; a slattern.
- A promiscuous woman, a slut; a prostitute.
- To consort with prostitutes; to whore.
- A small amount, especially of money.
- A box used in a saltworks for holding the salt when taken out of the boiling pans.
- An instance of a transgender or non-binary person presenting as the gender corresponding to their sex assigned at birth instead of that corresponding to their internal gender identity (most commonly a trans woman dressed as a man).
- Poison.
- To poison.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Probably from Middle French and Old French drap (“cloth”), either: * from Late Latin drappus (“drabcloth, kerchief; piece of cloth”), most likely from Gaulish *drappo, from Proto-Indo-European *drep- (“to scratch, tear”); or * from Frankish *drapi, *drāpi (“that which is fulled, drabcloth”), from Proto-Germanic *drap-, *drēp- (“something beaten”), from *drepaną (“to beat, strike”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrebʰ- (“to beat, crush; to make or become thick”). The English word is cognate with Ancient Greek δρέπω (drépō, “to pluck”), Avestan 𐬛𐬭𐬀𐬟𐬱𐬀 (drafša, “banner, flag”), Lithuanian drãpanos (“household linens”), Old Norse trefja (“to rub, wear out”), trof (“fringes”), Sanskrit द्रापि (drāpi, “mantle, gown”), Serbo-Croatian drápati (“to scratch, scrape”)).