drossy

dross

(drŏs, drôs)

1. Waste or impure matter: discarded the dross after recycling the wood pulp.

2. The scum that forms on the surface of molten metal as a result of oxidation.

3. Worthless, commonplace, or trivial matter: "He was wide-awake and his mind worked clearly, purged of all dross" (Vladimir Nabokov).

[Middle English dros, from Old English drōs, dregs.]

dross′y adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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drossy

adjective

Lacking all worth and value:

good-for-nothing, inutile, no-good, valueless, worthless.

Informal: no-account.

Slang: nothing.

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References in periodicals archive ?

What makes for passionate engagement where the 'dance' and 'dancer' are one, where learning is redeemed from drossy dutiful compliance in the expectation of the rewards of some future far-off outcomes.

Among (21st) century schoolchildren: The 'new literateurs' A response to 'New Literacies' in the middle years

No, miladi, drossy Art's atabal--by Rome, Melba, cover!" 3 9) Nurse ye no yen o' melody, Rana Cyrano-- 3 On a limb, Elban, I pistol ecotone tone dun!

Howard Bergerson's Surprise Symphony

(46) Following this culturally available logic, Iago's speech posits a jewel-like "good name" as not only more valuable than a drossy "purse," but as belonging to a completely different order of value: spiritual rather than material, "of the soul" rather than of the world.