What does drabbed mean?
"Drabbed" is the past tense and past participle of the verb "drab", a now-archaic English word meaning to associate or consort with prostitutes. It appears chiefly in writings of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, often alongside verbs like "drink" and "carouse" in moralising descriptions of dissolute living — a man might be said to have drunk and drabbed away his inheritance. The underlying noun "drab", denoting a prostitute, is of uncertain origin but was well established by the late sixteenth century, and it also gave rise to the unrelated-feeling adjective "drab" meaning dull or cheerless. Because both the verb and its noun are obsolete in ordinary modern usage, "drabbed" survives almost exclusively as a literary curiosity, encountered by readers of Restoration drama, early novels, and satirical pamphlets rather than by speakers of contemporary English.
verb (past tense and past participle)Past tense and past participle of the now-archaic verb 'drab', meaning to associate or consort with prostitutes.
- To have associated or consorted with prostitutes (archaic).
"In the pamphlet, the young gentleman was accused of having drabbed about London's taverns far too freely."
"The diarist confessed that in his dissolute youth he had drabbed shamelessly about the stews of the city."
"Moralists of the period condemned those who drank and drabbed their fortunes away."
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of drabbed
The verb derives from the noun "drab", meaning a prostitute, which entered English in the latter half of the sixteenth century with an uncertain origin. The verb, formed directly from that noun, came to mean to keep company with prostitutes, and its inflected forms such as "drabbed" appear in English literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries before falling out of use. No secure cognates in other languages are established for the root, so none can confidently be cited.
Related word forms
How drabbed is actually used
This is a historical/archaic form, found chiefly in literature of the 16th–18th centuries. Modern readers encounter it mainly in older texts; it should not be used as though it were current English. The related noun 'drab' meaning a prostitute is likewise archaic.
Easily confused with drabbed
The form 'drabbed' is occasionally encountered as a rare adjectival use meaning made drab or dulled in colour, but this is not an established dictionary sense; the standard verb sense refers to consorting with prostitutes.