Fusty

a. Also 6 fewsty; and see FOISTY. [f. FUST sb.¹ 2.]

  1.  That has lost its freshness, stale-smelling, musty. a. Of a wine-cask or vessel. Also of the wine: Tasting of the cask. Obs. exc. dial.

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., III. xii. (1495), 57. Wyne and other licour takyth infeccion of a vessell that is fusty.

1520.  Whitinton, Vulg. (1527), 15. The wyne bottell is somwhat fusty.

1601.  Holland, Pliny, II. 152. Now adaies good housekeepers also haue inuented means to renue their wines, and make them seem fresh and new, after they haue by long lying gotten a fusty rotten tast.

1616.  Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 617. To restore againe into his former and sound estate, the Wine that is growne fat, fustie, and hath taken winde.

1877.  Holderness Gloss., Fusty, musty; fetid; stale: generally applied to malt liquors, or vessels containing them.

  fig.  1645.  Milton, Colast. (1851), 375. His farewell, which is to be a concluding taste of his jabberment in law, the flashiest and the fustiest that ever corrupted in such an unswill’d hogshead.

  b.  Of bread, corn, meat, etc.: Smelling of mold or damp.

1491.  Caxton, Vitas Patr. (1495), 6. He … founde brede … the whyche was not fayre, but fusty and spotted.

1545.  Ascham, Toxoph., I. (Arb.), 76. Yf a feaste beynge neuer so great, lacked bread, or had fewsty and noughty bread, all the other daynties shulde be vnsauery.

1596.  Bp. W. Barlow, Three Serm., ii. 59. Who had rather the corne should waxe fustie in their garners then to sell it out.

1606.  Shaks., Tr. & Cr., II. i. 111. If he knocke out either of your braines, he were as good cracke a fustie nut with no kernell.

1655.  Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Improv. (1746), 339. You must not presently mould up your Meal after grinding … nor keep it too long, lest it prove fusty.

1884.  J. Bull’s Neighb. in True Light, xii. 88. He will take a piece of diseased horse or fusty beef, and make a ragoût that will cause you to smack your lips.

  fig.  1650.  Trapp, Comm. Numbers ix. 11. That fusty, swelling, sowring, spreading corruption of nature and practice.

  2.  Of persons, places, etc.: Having an unpleasant, ‘close,’ or ‘stuffy’ smell such as arises from dirt, dust, or damp.

a. 1529.  Skelton, Agst. Garnesche, 77. Fusty bawdyas!

1601.  B. Jonson, Poetaster, III. iv. Hang him, fustie Satire, he smells all goat.

1602.  2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., V. iv. 2233. Farewell musty, dusty, rusty, fusty London.

c. 1648–50.  Brathwait, Barnabees Jrnl., X v a. Ins are nasty, dusty, fustie.

1798.  A. Seward, Lett., xxii. (1811), V. 147. Old fusty stuff-beds, and blankets dusky from long and, perhaps, not very cleanly occupation.

1840.  Lady Granville, Lett., Jan. (1894), II. 299. Intense heat in the mild, fusty weather.

1842.  Dickens, in Forster, Life, III. 101. Dirty clothes-bags musty, moist and fusty.

1848.  Kingsley, Saint’s Trag., IV. iv.

1861.  Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., iv. (1889), 35. A fusty old gown which had been about college probably for ten generations.

  3.  fig. That has lost its freshness and interest; bearing marks of age or neglect; of old-fashioned appearance or behavior, ‘fogeyish.’

1606.  Shaks., Tr. & Cr., I. iii. 161. At this fusty stuffe, The large Achilles … laughes out a lowd applause.

1609.  W. M., Man in Moone (1857), 84. True is the proverbe, though fustie to fine wits, When the drink is in, the wit is out.

1674.  J. D., Mall, I. i., in Dryden’s Wks., 1884, VIII. 513. All pretty Ladies will shun thee for a fusty Husband.

1728.  Carey, Song, in Vanbr. & Cib., Prov. Husb., IV. If I stay ’till I grow gray, They’ll call me old Maid, and fusty old jade.

1743–4.  Mrs. Delany, Lett. to Mrs. Dewes, in Life & Corr., 249. Old fusty physicians you know are full of ceremony.

1782.  Miss Burney, Cecilia, X. x. What could ever induce you to give up your charming estate for the sake of coming into his fusty old family!

1833.  Tennyson, Poems, To Christopher North, 153.

1842.  Mrs. Gore, Fascin., 164. Létorière is too good a rider … to lose his time with fusty Latin and Greek.

1883.  John Skelton, Alpine Resting-places, in Good Words, XXIV. 183/1. The doctors say that it is good to move about, that change of air is the best cure, that we get musty and fusty if we stay in one place.

  † b.  ? Ill-humored, peevish, dull. Obs. rare^–1.

1668.  Pepys, Diary, 18 June. My wife still in a melancholy, fusty humour, and crying, and do not tell me plainly what it is.

  † c.  Used as sb.: A ‘seedy’ person. Obs.

a. 1732.  Gay, Distress’d Wife, II. v. If Mr. Forward calls, I think—Yes—You may let him in … But, be sure you let in no Fusties.

  4.  Comb., as fusty-framed, -looking, -rusty adjs.

1593.  Tell-Troth’s N. Y. Gift, 4. After the finishinge of whose fustie framed speech.

1782.  Cowper, Lett. to Unwin, 5 Jan., in Life, 1B04, III. 110. But what shall we say of his [Johnson’s] fusty-rusty remarks upon Henry and Emma?

1877.  Mar. M. Grant, Sun-Maid, i. A fusty-looking old personage with a large umbrella.

  Hence Fustily adv., Fustiness; also (jocular nonce-wds.) Fusticate v., to make fusty; Fustified a. = FUSTY a. 3.

1526.  Househ. Ord. (1790), 218. Item, that the Brewers doe brew good and seasonable stuff without Weevell or Fustines.

a. 1661.  Fuller, Worthies (1840), III. 333. If any fustiness be found in his [William of Malmesbury’s] writings, it comes not from the grape, but from the cask.

a. 1722.  Lisle, Husb. (1752), 169. ’Tis not only the loss of those grains that actually grow, but a foulness and fustiness also.

1835.  Beckford, Recoll., 148–50. This most consequential of equerries, with as much solemnity as if he had been reading a state proclamation, invited us, in the name of his mistress, a lady of high caste and importance, to screen ourselves from the meridian heats in her quinta hard by…. Preceded by the right pompous and fustified equerry, we diverged from the mended track.

1839.  Blackw. Mag., XLVI. 734. When there was a sort of golden age … and shepherds had nothing to do but pipe … The country pipes now-a-days, are terribly fusticated with tobacco.

1864.  Realm, 18 May, 8. We have so long associated him [an actor] with Melter Moss, that rustiness and fustiness seemed a normal part of his being.

1874.  Blackie, Self-Culture, 30. A student, and smells fustily of books, as an inveterate smoker does of tobacco.

1883.  J. Payn, Thicker than Water, 151. The one is fustiness, the other is skimpiness. In the former case … the air is rather difficult to breathe. Flue is everywhere.