Idiom idiom
dowdy up
Meaning
To make something appear plain and unattractive.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The old curtains really dowdy up the room.”
“She felt that the heavy, dark furniture served only to dowdy up the bright apartment.”
“The architect argued that the addition of such utilitarian structures would inevitably dowdy up the historic facade of the building.”
Anchors to
Last updated August 10, 2026