Fusty

Word of the Day for Saturday 1^st March 2014

Fusty \FUHS-tee\, adjective:

1. old-fashioned or out-of-date, as architecture, furnishings, or the like: They still live in that fusty, gingerbread house.
2. having a stale smell; moldy; musty: fusty rooms that were in need of a good airing.
3. stubbornly conservative or old-fashioned; fogyish.

It seemed somewhat fusty with its plush gold and red trimmings and ornate furniture, all of it so completely devoid of human activity.
-- Curtis Gillespie, Playing Through: A Year of Life and Links Along the Scottish Coast, 2002

She entered, and without further talk went up a steep, fusty stair and knocked at a door on a tiny landing.

-- Thomas Burke, Twinkletoes, 1926

Fusty can be traced back to the Latin fustis meaning "staff, stick of wood." It entered English in the 1390’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com