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1786, “Letter X”, in Examinator’s Letters, or, A Mirror for British Monopolists and Irish Financiers, Dublin: Printed, and sold by the booksellers, →OCLC, pages 41–42:
John Hanſell, of Bridport, in Dorſetſhire, ſail-cloth manufacturer, ſtates in his evidence, that the ſale of coarſe woollen cloath was not then a twentieth part of what it had been for the common people formerly, owing to their ſubſtituting Ruſſia drabs and ravenſduck as garments in place of the coarſe woollens.
[T]he carpet is a Brussels, of rather a small pattern, in various shades of greens and drabs.
1854, Thomas Love, “To Dye Silk Drabs in the Lavender Vat Different Ways”, in The Art of Cleaning, Dyeing, Scouring, and Finishing, on the Most Approved English and French Methods., London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans,, →OCLC, part I (The Art of Cleaning and Dyeing Silk), page 78:
Let your light drabs be next. Do not put anything in your liquor after your greys, except a pint of this ebony liquor; stir it up well, and handle in your silks for light drab for twenty minutes, and they are done; [...] The next drab you dye in the vat is a dark stone drab.
They looked very well in their simple suits, Meg in silvery drab, with a blue velvet snood, lace frills, and the pearl pin; Jo in maroon, with a stiff, gentlemanly linen collar, and a white chrysanthemum or two for her only ornament.
The sins of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson. / The sins of Kalamazoo are a convict gray, a dishwater drab. / And the people who sin the sins of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson. / They run to drabs and grays—and some of them sing they shall be washed whiter than snow—and some: We should worry.
He wore a pretty large wig, which had once been white, but was now of a browniſh yellow; his coat was one of thoſe modeſt-coloured drabs which mock the injuries of duſt and dirt; [...]
1860 September, J. Crawford Wilson, “Brutus”, in Frank Leslie’s Monthly, volume VII, number 3, New York, N.Y.: [Frank Leslie] Publication Office, 19, City Hall Square, →OCLC, page 237, column 1:
[T]o please her he promised to lay aside the universal drabs for the wedding day and to case his extremities in modern black cloth continuations, with an express stipulation that the drabs should again be in active service on the subsequent morning.
1907 October, Jane Armstrong, “Woman Architect who Helped Build the Fairmont Hotel”, in The Architect and Engineer of California, volume X, number 3, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Calif.: Architect & Engineer Co., →OCLC, page 70:
I knew that Julia Morgan was a Beaux Arts graduate, and through my mind there trooped a bizarre procession of girls who have studied one thing or another in Paris. They usually come home dressed in a color scheme of the impressionistic school, with their talent merely a by-product of a wonderful new set of mannerisms and a novel and fuzzy way of doing their hair. Yet here was a young woman dressed in drab and severely hair pinned.
The slimy little causeway had dropped into the river by a slow process of suicide, and two or three stumps of piles and a rusty iron mooring-ring were all that remained of the departed Break-Neck glories. [...] [T]hrough three-fourths of its rising tides the dirty indecorous drab of a river would come solitarily oozing and lapping at the rusty ring, [...]
Watership Down review – CGI rabbits can't save this Christmas turkey. The 1970s cartoon traumatised generations of children, but the new version is tame, drab and deeply unsatisfying. What, really, was the point?
A drab office block sandwiched between a pub and a branch of Starbucks was a secret base of spy agency GCHQ, it has been confirmed. The anonymous building opposite St James's Park Tube station in central London was used by British spooks for 66 years.
The coffee presently appeared, brought not as usual by the footman, in scarlet and drab, but by the old butler, in threadbare but well-brushed black, [...]
[T]he man was about fifty-two—had a ſmall cane under his arm—was dreſs'd in a dark drab-colour'd coat, waiſtcoat, and breeches, which ſeem'd to have seen ſome years ſervice—they were ſtill clean, and there was a little air of frugal propretè throughout him.
Year by year they will find her with even thinner hair, sharper shoulders, drabber cheeks; and he, looking upon her with the forgiveness of complete indifference, will say to himself, "She is bad, and she is ugly; I was well rid of her!"
Have you no longing ever to be free? / In warm, electric days to run a-muck, / Ranging like some mad dinosaur, / Your fiery heart at war / With this strange world, the city's restless ruck, / Where all drab things that toil, save you alone, / Have life; [...]
Furniture is comical. It responds to humans. For some it looks its drabbest, for others it sparkles and looks, if not handsome, at any rate comfortable.
1593, Gabriel Harvey, Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse, London: Iohn Wolfe, →OCLC; republished as John Payne Collier, editor, Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. A Preparative to Certaine Larger Discourses, Intituled Nashes S. Fame (Miscellaneous Tracts. Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I; no. 8), , 1870], →OCLC, page 150:
[C]ertainly thou deſireſt but thy right, that canſt read a rhetorique, or logique lecture to Hecuba in the art of raving, and inſtruct Tiſiphone herſelfe in her owne gnaſhing language. Other he, or ſhe, drabs of the curſteſt or vengeableſt rankes, are but dipped or dyed in the art; not ſuch a belldam in the whole kingdome of frogges, as thy croking, and moſt clamorous ſelfe.
[O]ld Lad of War; thou that were wont to be as hot as a turn-ſpit, as nimble as a fencer, & as lowzy as a ſchoole-maiſter; now thou art put to ſilence like a Secretarie? [...] who are your centinells in peace and ſtand ready charg'd to giue warning; with hems, hums, & pockey-coffs; only your Chambers are licenc'ſt to play vpon you, and Drabs enow to giue fire to 'em.
1660, James Hovvell [i.e., James Howell], “Diharebion Cymraeg, VVedu ei Cysiethu yn Saisoneg = British, or Old Cambrian Proverbs, and Cymraecan Adages, Never Englished, (and Divers Never Published) before.”, in Lexicon Tetraglotton, an English–French–Italian–Spanish Dictionary:, Printed by J G for Samuel Thomson, →OCLC, page 20:
Old provincial society had [...] its brilliant young professional dandies who ended by living up an entry with a drab and six children for their establishment, [...]
1956, J. J. Marric [pseudonym; John Creasey], “Father and Son”, in Gideon’s Week, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →OCLC, page 154; republished in Gideon at Work: Three Complete Novels: Gideon’s Day, Gideon’s Week, Gideon’s Night, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers, 1957, →OCLC, page 250:
The doss house emptied during the day; from ten o'clock until five or six in the evening, there was no one there except Mulliver, a drab who did some of the cleaning for him, and occasional visitors.
Take heed to false harlots, and more, ye wot what. / If noise ye heare, / Looke all be cleare: / Leastdrabs doe noie thee, / And theeues destroie thee.
Experience ſhewes, his Purſe ſhall ſoone grow light, / Whom Dice waſtes in the day, Drabs in the night: / Let all auoyde falſe Strumpets, Dice, and Drinke; / For hee that leaps in Mudde, ſhall quickly ſinke.
1735, Alexander Pope, “[Satires of Dr. John Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s.] The Second Satire of Dr. John Donne.”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume II, London: J. Wright, for Lawton Gilliver, →OCLC, page 49, lines 63–64:
Curs'd be the Wretch! ſo venal and ſo vain; / Paltry and proud, as drabs in Drury-lane.
a.1775, Oliver Goldsmith, “A Description of an Author’s Bed-chamber”, in Poems and Plays., new corrected edition, London: Printed for Messrs. Price , published 1785, →OCLC, page 10:
Where the Red Lion ſtaring o'er the way, / Invites each paſſing ſtranger that can pay; / Where Calvert’s butt, and Parſon’s black champaign, / Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane; [...]
You may ſay, you ſaw him at ſuch a time, marke you mee, / At game, or drincking, ſwearing, or drabbing, / You may go ſo farre.
1720, [John] Dennis, The Invader of His Country: Or, The Fatal Resentment. A Tragedy., London: Printed for J. Pemberton, and J. Watts; and sold by J. Brotherton and W. Meadows; T. Jauncy and A. Dodd; W. Lewis, and J. Graves, →OCLC, act II, scene iii, page 24:
Very fine! This Sempronius is a bleſſed Perſon indeed! he Games, he Cheats, he Swears, he Drinks, he Drabs; [...]
Let realism have its demonstration, comedy its criticism, or even bawdry its horselaugh at the expense of sexual infatuation, if it must; but to ask us to subject our souls to its ruinous glamour, to worship it, deify it, and imply that it alone makes our life worth living, is nothing but folly gone mad erotically—a thing compared to which Falstaff's unbeglamored drinking and drabbing is respectable and rightminded.
He did not relish the apparition of that Katherine, for when it appeared it seemed to bring with it a brother shadow that wore ragged clothes and tangled hair and foul linen; that drank from any flagon and drabbed with any doxy; that slept in tavern angles through hours of drunkenness; a thing whose fingers pillaged, filched and pilfered when and where they could; a creature that once he saw whenever he stared into a mirror.
a.1746, Jonathan Swift, “VII. Another, Written upon a Window where there was No Writing before.”, in Thomas Sheridan, compiler, The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin. In Nineteen Volumes, new corrected and revised edition, volume VII, London: Printed [by Nichols and Son] for J[oseph] Johnson [et al.], published 1801, →OCLC, page 361:
Thanks to my stars, I once can see / A window here from scribbling free! / Here no conceited coxcombs pass, / To scratch their paltry drabs on glass; / Nor party-fool is calling names, / Or dealing crowns to George and James.
1823, William Cobbett, “Brewing Beer”, in Cottage Economy:, new edition, London: Printed for J. M. Cobbett,, →OCLC, paragraph 30:
The tea drinking has done a great deal in bringing this nation into the state [of] misery in which it now is; and the tea drinking, which is carried on by "dribs" and "drabs;" by pence and farthings going out at a time; this miserable practice has been gradually introduced by the growing weight of the taxes on Malt and on Hops, and by the everlasting penury amongst the labourers, occasioned by the paper-money.
His tone, which contained more than a few drabs of sarcasm, was a notch or two shy of disrespectful, and his words, though sharp, were themselves circumspect.
1748, William Brownrigg, “Of the Use of Salt as a Condiment or Pickle”, in The Art of Making Common Salt, as Now Practised in Most Parts of the World; with Several Improvements Proposed in that Art, for the Use of the British Dominions, London: Printed, and sold by C. Davis,; A Millar,; and R Dodsley,, →OCLC, part II (The Art of Preparing White Salt: Appendix), pages 166–168:
Thoſe therefore, who are moſt exact in pickling beef for exportation, [...] take their carcaſſes as ſoon as cold, and cut them into proper pieces; and after rubbing each piece carefully with good white ſalt, lay them on heaps in a cool cellar, in a drab with a ſhelving bottom, where they remain for four or five days, 'till the blood hath drained out of the larger veſſels.
When the ſalt is carried into the ſtore-houſe, it is put into drabs, which are partitions, like ſtalls for horſes, lined at three ſides, and the bottom with boards, and having a ſliding-board on the foreſide to draw up on occaſion. The bottoms are made ſhelving, being higheſt at the back, and gradually inclining forwards; by this means the brine, remaining among the ſalt, eaſily ſeparates and runs from it, and the ſalt in three or four days becomes ſufficiently dry; [...]
In both caſes they let the ſalt remain in the pan till the whole is finiſhed; then they rake it out with wooden rakes, and after it has drained a-while in wooden drabs, it is fit for uſe. The mother-brine, of which there always remains a large quantity in the pan after the ſtrong ſalt is made, as alſo the drainings of the drabs where the ſalt is put, is reſerved to be boiled up into table-ſalt; [...]
1857 August, Wm C. Dennis, “Salt—Its Uses and Manufacture—Salt Meats. An Inquiry into the Defects of Common Salt in General Use in the United States for Curing Provisions, and on the Subject of Careless Packing and Management of Meats, etc, with Some Hints as to a Remedy”, in J[ames] D[unwoody] B[rownson] De Bow, editor, De Bow’s Review and Industrial Resources, Statistics, etc.:, volume III (New Series; volume XXIII overall), New Orleans, La., Washington, D.C.: , →OCLC, page 135:
The Liverpool salt is made from the impure article that is found in the mines of Cheshire, which is transported in vast quantities down the River Mersey, and is dissolved in seawater on the left bank at extensive manufactories opposite to Liverpool. This impure pickle is drawn from the tanks, in which it is dissolved, into large shallow pans, and by a rapid process of boiling it is crystalized—drawn from the pans—the salt placed in drabs or baskets to drain, ready for another charge within 24 hours, except on Sundays; the charge in the pans is allowed 48 hours to crystalize and be drawn.
Translations
box used in a saltworks
Etymology 5
Alteration of drag, possibly via the folk-etymological backronym "DRessed As a Girl" (with boy replacing girl).
2012 November 1, Jocelyn Samara D., “Comic 278 - Ch. 12 - Drab”, in Rain, archived from the original on 21 January 2020:
Just for those who may not be aware of the term, “drab” is how you might describe a transgendered person (including transsexuals, crossdressers, drag queens, etc.) that is presenting as their birth sex. For instance, if Rain is dressed as a boy, she is dressed in “drab”. My original idea had Ruby on this page too, but that took away from the “drab” theme.
Usage notes
In this sense, drab usually (though not always) refers to a trans woman presenting as a man.
^ Walter W[illiam] Skeat (1910) “DRAB (2)”, in An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new (4th) revised and enlarged edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: At the Clarendon Press, published 1963, →OCLC, page 181, column 1.
^ See, for example, the Vita Caesaris Arelatis (6th century): see Jean-Paul Savignac (2004) “drap”, in Dictionnaire français-gaulois, Paris: Editions la Différence, →ISBN, page 123.
^ Xavier Delamarre (2001) “drappo”, in Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise : une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental, Paris: Errance, →ISBN.
Y wydzal gest we znye drab stoyøcz na zemyø (viditque in somnis scalam stantem super terram), koncem nyeba dosyøgayøcz, a angyoli boze s nyey wstøpuyøcz y støpuyøcz po nyey
[I widział jest we śnie drab stojąc na ziemie, końcem nieba dosięgając a anjoły boże [s niej] wstępując i zstępując po niej.]
And he saw in his sleep a ladder standing on the earth, with its end reaching Heaven and heavenly angels climbing and descending on it.
(attested in Lesser Poland)The meaning of this term is uncertain. Possibilities include:
B. Sieradzka-Baziur, Ewa Deptuchowa, Joanna Duska, Mariusz Frodyma, Beata Hejmo, Dorota Janeczko, Katarzyna Jasińska, Krystyna Kajtoch, Joanna Kozioł, Marian Kucała, Dorota Mika, Gabriela Niemiec, Urszula Poprawska, Elżbieta Supranowicz, Ludwika Szelachowska-Winiarzowa, Zofia Wanicowa, Piotr Szpor, Bartłomiej Borek, editors (2011–2015), “drab”, in Słownik pojęciowy języka staropolskiego [Conceptual Dictionary of Old Polish] (in Polish), Kraków: IJP PAN, →ISBN
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1897; “drab1, adj. and n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
drab (color) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia 
Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego/drab on the Polish Wikisource.Wikisource pl