to be a frump
- idiom
- Offensive
:
vestirse de forma anticuada
- She refused to be a frump at the party and chose a bright, stylish dress instead.
Examples
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Just because it's cold outside doesn't mean you have to be a frump.
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I don't want to be a frump anymore, so I'm updating my wardrobe.
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Don't be a frump at the party!
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She decided not to be a frump anymore.
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She always wears baggy clothes and never styles her hair; she really knows how to be a frump.
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At the party, she chose a plain dress and no accessories, completely deciding to be a frump.
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He tends to be a frump by wearing old jeans and outdated t-shirts every day.
Synonyms
To appear old-fashioned and messy in your clothes
To behave in a boring, old-fashioned way around other people
Antonyms
How Unfashionable
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the copular construction 'be' + article + noun: if a learner knows 'frump' means an unfashionable, dull person, 'be a frump' straightforwardly means to be such a person. This is a regular, compositional pattern (identity/role expressed by 'be') that is cross-linguistically common and should be clear to B1 learners who know the constituent words.
Etymology
Be a frump comes from a time when frump was a word for a plain, shapeless woman who wore old, dull clothes. So, to be a frump came to mean 'to behave or dress in an unfashionable, dull way'.