Dusty Meaning
/ˈdʌsti/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjCovered with dust.
adjPowdery and resembling dust.
Sentence Examples
The furniture was dusty.
The dusty track descends to a valley.
The road is dusty. It cannot have rained yesterday.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ road made the travelers cough and sneeze.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The furniture was ____.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English dusty, dusti, from Old English dūstiġ, dystiġ, dȳstiġ (“dusty”), equivalent to dust + -y. Cognate with Dutch donzig (“cottony, downy, woolly”), German dunstig (“hazy, misty”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"On a cold morning in Abilene, Texas, a column of 18-wheelers crawls down bumpy, waterlogged roads, past cattle grazing on dusty shrubs."
— 2025 December 11, Charlie Campbell, Andrew R. Chow and Billy Perrigo, “The Architects of AI Are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year”, in Time:
"The very smart practitioners of my acquaintance do not rest their right hand on old dusty knowledge, but bend and move along a ground of being in which they are perpetually on the lookout for what is trusty and true, new and old."
— 2018, Mark A. Kunkel, Allegories for Psychotherapy, Teaching, and Supervision, page 208:
"...the toilet-glass on the table...had probably reflected few such faces as that of the lady calling herself Mrs. Lloyd, who looked attentively into it when she found herself alone and decided that she was not so very dusty, considering"
— 1868, Edmund Yates, The Rock Ahead: A Novel, page 21:
"One morning, I said to a patient: "How are you today, Mrs. White?" And she replied "Not so dusty - quite well brushed.""
— 1967, “Jewish Affairs”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 22, page 30:
""Never mind," she ventured, "but thanks for the compliment. You're not so dusty yourself!""
— 2011, Media Lawson-Butler, Thistle in the Wind, page 205:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ road made the travelers cough and sneeze.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The furniture was ____.