drabness

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — drab sits at #9,072Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Drabness is dull colourlessness with nothing to catch the eye. The drabness of the corridor.

The word drab was once a kind of undyed cloth, which is exactly the image. Drabness is cheap to produce and expensive to live with.

Definitions of drabness

1noundrabnessDull colourlessness with nothing to catch the eye.C2
“The drabness of the whole estate was the first thing anybody mentioned.”

drabness is a quality.

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*dʰrebʰ-
Old French
drap — cloth
English
drab
English, today
drabness

From drab + -ness. drab Probably from Middle French - and Old French drap (“cloth”), either:

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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