Musty
adjective
Having a stale, moldy, or damp smell.
I found a musty book at the bottom of an old box in the attic.
Often appears as...
- musty smell
- musty room
adjective
Lacking freshness or vitality; outdated or old-fashioned.
His ideas are musty and do not resonate with today's society.
Often appears as...
- musty ideas
- musty thinking
Usage tips
Disapproving
adjective
Having a stale, moldy, or damp smell.
I found a musty book at the bottom of an old box in the attic.
Often appears as...
- musty smell
- musty room
adjective
Lacking freshness or vitality; outdated or old-fashioned.
His ideas are musty and do not resonate with today's society.
Often appears as...
- musty ideas
- musty thinking
Usage tips
Disapproving
Definition 1 of 2
Pro Tip 1/3Negative Connotation
Describing a smell as musty often implies it's unpleasant or undesirable.
When she opened the ancient trunk, a musty odor wafted out.
Pro Tip 2/3Sensory Description
Use 'musty' to evoke the sense of smell and a sense of oldness or neglect.
The musty smell of the cellar reminded him of abandoned houses.
Pro Tip 3/3Visual Imagery
'Musty' often accompanies visual descriptions of old or unused items or spaces.
The attic was cluttered and had a distinctly musty scent.
Compare with
ancientantiquearchaicfustymoldyoutdatedstale
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Video examples
Safari Live - Day 146 PIPE...
of course Lions can sleep for up to 20 hours of the day musty and so to say that they would get up at any specific time to go hunting would be incorrect and I mean we have set with flat cats deep into the evening thinking well they're definitely gonna get up now they're so hungry they must start hunting now it's getting dark
Video examples
How to design a library...
Because, they said, the premise of all this work was that kids were bored with old libraries, musty old libraries. They were tired of them. And instead, they said, these kids have never really seen a library. The school libraries in these schools are really so dilapidated, if they're there at all,
Video examples
How do you know you’re...
and each new day is full of countless people, places, things, experiences. Even our memories, which capture just a fraction of this experience, contain an almost incomprehensibly vast amount of we can recall a line from a favorite book decades later, remember the musty smell of its pages
Video examples
Safari Live - Day 210 PIPE...
very very good for the upcoming week that is approaching and it's possible that also the little bit of rainfall we had yesterday just got all the feathers out of joint and they weren't really able to dry themselves so they get that sort of that musty sort of smell you
Video examples
Lumberjack For a Day PIPE...
the stake to avoid wearing Jonny's musty old work shirt as the resident engineer he's using a rope and pulley system for maximum accuracy the Rope that's tied to his tree will run through a pulley and connect to a winch he'll anchor the pulley at the proper
Video examples
Safari Live - Day 110 PIPE...
skunk but this is not as bad as a skunk for my understanding and surprisingly you know what else does that is is the honey badger now honey badgers do also secrete a liquid like a very musty smell and scent if they are threatened really badly I've
Video examples
How fashion helps us...
In it, under a bunch of his college textbooks, was a pair of black corduroy bell-bottom pants. These pants were awful -- musty and moth-eaten. And of course, I fell in love with them. I'd never seen anything like them.
Video examples
Shilo Shiv Suleman:...
These poor Apsaras have been trapped inside Indra's chambers for thousands of years in an old and musty book. And so we're bringing them back in a contemporary story for children.
Video examples
This Little Sun Bear's...
faint smells guide me on a constant search for food I traced the musty odour of a soft log to termites I didn't always walk the
Video examples
Christian Catacomb...
cemeteries ancient musty air fills the lungs
Video examples
Safari Live - Day 146 PIPE...
of course Lions can sleep for up to 20 hours of the day musty and so to say that they would get up at any specific time to go hunting would be incorrect and I mean we have set with flat cats deep into the evening thinking well they're definitely gonna get up now they're so hungry they must start hunting now it's getting dark
Video examples
How to design a library...
Because, they said, the premise of all this work was that kids were bored with old libraries, musty old libraries. They were tired of them. And instead, they said, these kids have never really seen a library. The school libraries in these schools are really so dilapidated, if they're there at all,
Video examples
How do you know you’re...
and each new day is full of countless people, places, things, experiences. Even our memories, which capture just a fraction of this experience, contain an almost incomprehensibly vast amount of we can recall a line from a favorite book decades later, remember the musty smell of its pages
Video examples
Safari Live - Day 210 PIPE...
very very good for the upcoming week that is approaching and it's possible that also the little bit of rainfall we had yesterday just got all the feathers out of joint and they weren't really able to dry themselves so they get that sort of that musty sort of smell you
Video examples
Lumberjack For a Day PIPE...
the stake to avoid wearing Jonny's musty old work shirt as the resident engineer he's using a rope and pulley system for maximum accuracy the Rope that's tied to his tree will run through a pulley and connect to a winch he'll anchor the pulley at the proper
Video examples
Safari Live - Day 110 PIPE...
skunk but this is not as bad as a skunk for my understanding and surprisingly you know what else does that is is the honey badger now honey badgers do also secrete a liquid like a very musty smell and scent if they are threatened really badly I've
Video examples
How fashion helps us...
In it, under a bunch of his college textbooks, was a pair of black corduroy bell-bottom pants. These pants were awful -- musty and moth-eaten. And of course, I fell in love with them. I'd never seen anything like them.
Video examples
Shilo Shiv Suleman:...
These poor Apsaras have been trapped inside Indra's chambers for thousands of years in an old and musty book. And so we're bringing them back in a contemporary story for children.
Video examples
This Little Sun Bear's...
faint smells guide me on a constant search for food I traced the musty odour of a soft log to termites I didn't always walk the
Video examples
Christian Catacomb...
cemeteries ancient musty air fills the lungs
Example 1 of 10
Quote examples
Dan Stevens
British Actor
A British porch is a musty, forbidding non-room in which to fling a sodden umbrella or a muddy pair of boots; a guard against the elements and strangers. By contrast the good ol' American front porch seems to stand for positivity and openness; a platform from which to welcome or wave farewell; a place where things of significance could happen.
Quote examples
Kathryn Minshew
American Businesswoman
Job seekers light up when they find The Muse - we're a breath of fresh air in a stale, musty world. Our user experience focuses first and foremost on the individual, on providing them information - from content to company profiles - to make the most pressing professional decisions in their lives.
Quote examples
Alexander Hamilton
American Politician
The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.
Quote examples
Alexander Hamilton
American Politician
The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased.
Quote examples
Elvis Mitchell
American Critic
Adapted from the novel by L. Ron Hubbard, who cranked out sci-fi pulp by the cubic ton, 'Battlefield Earth' has the musty feel of the days when the genre's highlight was Flash Gordon.
Quote examples
Susan Choi
American Novelist
It's still funny for me to think of myself as someone who writes historical fiction because it seems like a really fusty, musty term, and yet it clearly applies.
Quote examples
Elvis Mitchell
American Critic
Mike Mignola's 'Hellboy' comics have a drizzly, musty gothic ambience - the same fetid air that H. P. Lovecraft circulated in his fiction.
Quote examples
Dan Stevens
British Actor
A British porch is a musty, forbidding non-room in which to fling a sodden umbrella or a muddy pair of boots; a guard against the elements and strangers. By contrast the good ol' American front porch seems to stand for positivity and openness; a platform from which to welcome or wave farewell; a place where things of significance could happen.
Quote examples
Kathryn Minshew
American Businesswoman
Job seekers light up when they find The Muse - we're a breath of fresh air in a stale, musty world. Our user experience focuses first and foremost on the individual, on providing them information - from content to company profiles - to make the most pressing professional decisions in their lives.
Quote examples
Alexander Hamilton
American Politician
The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.
Quote examples
Alexander Hamilton
American Politician
The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased.
Quote examples
Elvis Mitchell
American Critic
Adapted from the novel by L. Ron Hubbard, who cranked out sci-fi pulp by the cubic ton, 'Battlefield Earth' has the musty feel of the days when the genre's highlight was Flash Gordon.
Quote examples
Susan Choi
American Novelist
It's still funny for me to think of myself as someone who writes historical fiction because it seems like a really fusty, musty term, and yet it clearly applies.
Quote examples
Elvis Mitchell
American Critic
Mike Mignola's 'Hellboy' comics have a drizzly, musty gothic ambience - the same fetid air that H. P. Lovecraft circulated in his fiction.
Example 1 of 7
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