a. Now dial. [? f. FROUGH a. +-Y1.]
1. Musty, sour, stale, not sweet.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., July, 111. They … like not of the frowie fede.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Frowy, stale; on the point of turning sour from being over kept.
1866. Mrs. Stowe, Lit. Foxes, 117. Mrs. D. is a decent housekeeper, and so her bread be not sour, her butter not frowy [etc.].
2. Of wood: Spongy, soft-textured, brittle. Frowy-stuff (see quot. 1858).
1641. H. Best, Rural Economy in Yorkshire in 1641 (Surtees), 32. The best strides are those that are made of froughy, unseasoned oake.
1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 67. If your Wood be soft, and your Stuff free, and frowy, that is, evenly temper’d all the way.
1750. W. Ellis, Mod. Husb., VII. ii. 43 (E. D. S.). Such an ash … grows frowy, short and spungy.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Frowy-stuff, a builder’s name for short, or brittle and soft, timber.
1889. Farmer, Americanisms, Froughy, spongy, brittle, or, in fact, applied to anything that is of inferior quality.
