musty

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[2][3] Most dictionaries take it, with some doubt, as an alteration from English of moisty, damp,^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} from moist, itself from Old French moiste,^[10] perhaps influenced by must, new wine.^[11][7][3] Dictionary.com explains the loss of the i before s by comparison with master.^[6] The OED also suggests muste, moste, Anglo-Norman variants of moiste, or a Romance cognate such as Old Occitan moste (“wet, damp”) or Spanish mustio (“wilting”), and compares in sense Middle French moisi (“mouldy”).^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged derives it from the noun must with -y,^[12] Weekley suggested a direct Gascon source,^[9] and Skeat from Latin musteus (“like must, new”).^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of food or drink, having a mouldy smell or taste: 1492, in the poems of John Ryman.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1520s,^[14] and Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to 1530, in Palsgrave's French–English dictionary.^[5][12]

Semantic evolution

The word soon widened to anything spoiled by damp or mildew (about 1503) and to the smell of damp or decay (before 1529, in Skelton).^[2] Figurative uses followed: ideas or customs that have lost their freshness (1575), and dull, old-fashioned people (1603).^[2] Shakespeare's "the proverb is something musty" shows the sense "stale, trite".^[12] From 1620 it also meant peevish or sullen, now only in north-western England;^[2] Wright recorded it in Cumberland as "sour-looking, gloomy".^[15] Johnson (1755) defined it as mouldy, spoiled with damp, moist and fetid.^[16] A verb, to become musty, was used from 1631 to 1704,^[2][12] and in 1709 Steele mentioned a snuff called musty.^[2]

Timeline

• 1492 – of food or drink, smelling or tasting of mould.^[2]
• c. 1503 – spoiled with damp; mouldy, mildewed.^[2]
• before 1529 – smelling of damp or decay; stale, unaired.^[2]
• 1575 – figurative, stale, outmoded.^[2]
• 1603 – of a person, dull and old-fashioned.^[2]
• 1620 – peevish, sullen.^[2]
• 1631 – verb, to become musty (obsolete by 1704).^[2]
• 1709 – noun, a snuff with a musty flavour.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Smelling or tasting of mould or damp; stale and unaired: the musty smell of an old attic.^[12][2]
2. Spoiled by damp; mouldy or mildewed.^[12][2]
3. Out of date or worn out; trite, dull or antiquated.^[12][2]
4. (regional) Peevish or sullen; gloomy-looking.^[2][15]

Verb

1. (obsolete, 1631–1704) To become musty.^[12][2]

Word family

• mustily
• mustiness

Related words

• moist
• fusty

Usage notes

The OED records separately an obsolete adjective musty, of or relating to must or new wine (about 1440 to 1802),^[2][3] and a musty used since 1868 of a male elephant or camel in musth.^[2]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.