i Register
In some senses, frowsty is marked as British. Watch for register when choosing this word.
adj
Of an atmosphere: not fresh; close, musty, stuffy; of an object: having a musty, stale odour.
He thought of getting back by half-past twelve, / And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep / In draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumes / Of coke, and full of snoring, weary men.
[T]he London theatres themselves, nearly all of them, the meanest, dirtiest, dingiest, fustiest, frowstiest edifices in the country.
Of a person: dull, slow; also, unkempt, untidy.
A window opened above the shop, and a frowsty-looking man, yellow-pale, was quickly and nervously hauling in the national flag. There were shouts of derision and mockery—a great overtone of acrid derision—the flag and its owner ignominiously disappeared.
Man, he says, was still "frowsty-minded" and "half asleep" in the early twenty-first century, still in urgent danger of a relapse into the confused nightmare living of the Age of Frustration.