a. [f. STODGE v. + -Y.]
1. Of a thick, semi-solid consistency.
1823. E. Moor, Suffolk Words, Stodjy, thick—clayey—clogsome. Such as a heavy road.
1887. Kentish Gloss., Stodgy, thick; glutinous; muddy. ‘The church path ’s got middlin’ stodgy.’
b. Of food, esp. of farinaceous food: Thick, glutinous.
1858. Spurdens, Suppl. to Forby’s Voc. E. Anglia, Slodgy, thick, as porridge: pulmentum crassum.
1866. Lond. Rev., 2 June, 608/2. A stodgy mass of paste in which potatoes and odds and ends of food have been mixed.
a. 1890. R. F. Burton, in Isabel Burton, Life (1893), I. 74. This cannibal meal was succeeded by stodgy pudding.
1906. Olive C. Malvery, Soul Market, ix. 156. The meat was almost raw, the potatoes stodgy.
c. Of food or a meal: Heavy, solid, hard to ‘get through.’
1884. G. H. Boughton, in Harper’s Mag., Oct., 709/2. The stodgy table d’hôte.
1889. C. Keene, in Life, xiii. (1892), 409. It’s a stodgy feed—soup, fish, flesh, and fowl, etc.
2. fig. Dull, heavy; wanting in gaiety or brightness. a. of literary composition, a subject of conversation, etc.
1887. A. Lang, in Longman’s Mag., May, 107. The most merciless and interminable romance that ever lowered the circulation of a magazine, and then appeared in three stodgy volumes the day after.
1895. Jowett, in L. A. Tollemache, Benjamin Jowett, 8. I must make a bargain with you that, when we take a walk together, you don’t put more than one of your stodgy questions!
1906. ‘Guy Thorne,’ First it was ordained, 106. In England, art must be obvious and stodgy before people think it’s respectable.
1907. W. L. Randell, in Academy, 28 Sept., 948/2. Witness the stodgy sonnets to the moon and limp lyrics to the nightingale.
b. of a person, ceremony, one’s life.
1895. Brit. Weekly, 28 March, 370/1. There are experiences which grave the brow in spite of a man. But, on the other hand, to grow stodgy is no mark of grace.
1904. S. Macnaughtan, Gift, II. ii. 127. The wedding was a stodgy affair.
1905. Elin. Glyn, Viciss. Evangeline, 101. I have not felt like writing; these last days have been so stodgy,—sticky I was going to say! Endless infant talk!
c. fig. of a quality.
1894. Du Maurier, Trilby (1895), 74. It fosters … self-respect, and not a few stodgy practical virtues as well.
3. Of a person: Bulky in figure (usually connoting stiffness and clumsiness in movement).
1854. Miss Baker, Northampt. Gloss., s.v., He’s a stodgy little man.
1879. J. Payn, High Spirits (ed. 2), I. 208. He was a stodgy, pursy, plethoric old fellow.
1895. Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, in Century Mag., Feb., 540/2. Not with the stodgy plumpness of John Bull.
4. Of things: Bulky, ‘fat,’ distended.
1860. Geo. Eliot, Mill on Floss, I. v. ‘You don’t know what I’ve got in my pockets.’… ‘No,’ said Maggie. ‘How stodgy they look.’
Hence Stodgily adv., Stodginess.
1899. Pall Mall Gaz., 31 July, 4/1. That portion of the reading public which likes its fiction solid even to stodginess.
1904. Sat. Rev., 2 Jan., 18/2. Subjects … when handled stodgily are not worth reproducing.
