dowdiness

Whatever the particulars, the calculation is the same — a belief that many diners are eager to dress up again after an epoch of record-level dowdiness.

Isolated from the group of other local women, who are judgmental and close ranks against her for no reason other than her quietness and awkward dowdiness, Betty is shown mostly alone with an infant.

As I clung to their every word, the stories taught me that other girls could not be trusted and that unpopularity, dowdiness and fatness were essentially worse than death.

Though she is young—her body lithe, her skin smooth—Diamond’s bearing suggests a slight dowdiness, of the sort one might encounter in stock images labelled “motherhood.”

Modest fashion might come across as a humblebrag: You have to be a pretty stylish, pretty good-looking woman to claim ownership of such radical dowdiness.