adjective
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covered with or involving dust
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like dust in appearance or colour
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(of a colour) tinged with grey; pale
dusty pink
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an unhelpful or bad-tempered reply
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informal not too bad; fairly well: often in response to the greeting how are you?
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of dusty
Middle English word dating back to 1175–1225; see origin at dust, -y 1
Explanation
When you call something dusty, it's either literally covered in dust or so old and unoriginal that it might as well be. You can use a feather duster to clean off dusty surfaces, but if something is a dusty color, that just means it's got a grayish tint to it, like dusty pink or dusty blue. If something has been around for a really long time and it's worn-out, stale, or unoriginal, you can also call it dusty. If you're a stand up comedian whose been working the same act for thirty years, chances are your jokes are getting a little dusty.
Vocabulary lists containing dusty
Two-Faced Words: Contronyms
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Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -y
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Fujimori began her election day having breakfast in the Lima suburb of San Juan de Lurigancho, the most populous district in Peru, where impoverished neighbourhoods crowd the steep, dusty mountains.
From BBC • Jun. 8, 2026
When I completed my postgraduate studies in the late 1990s, I shelved my doctoral finance thesis in a dusty library.
From Barron's • Jun. 5, 2026
Built on community connection rather than blockbuster spectacle, the Redondo Beach festival deliberately avoids typical pain points like long lines and dusty lots to create a comfortable oceanfront gathering.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 4, 2026
I’m talking about the dusty envelopes hanging from metal hooks near the soup packets.
From Salon • Jun. 2, 2026
She smelled rain, a cool dusty odor that sent ripples of excitement through her body—but she wished she could find shelter!
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
