drossy

comparative drossier · comparative more drossy · superlative drossiest · superlative most drossy

1. worthless

   They found the Mass, ’tis true, but in their Mould They purg’d the drossy Oar to current Gold: Mending their patttern, they escap’d the Curse, Yet had they not writ better, they’d writ worse.

   1685, Matthew Prior, “A Satyr on the modern Translators”, in H. Bunker Wright, Monroe K. Spears, editors, The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, Second edition, volume I, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1971, page 23

   1 more example

   Thus has he, and many more of the same breed that I know the drossy age dotes on, only got the tune of the time and, out of an habit of encounter, a kind of yeasty collection, which carries them through and through the most profane and winnowed opinions

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]