From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfustyfus‧ty /ˈfʌsti/ adjective 1 AIRif rooms, clothes, buildings etc are fusty, they have an unpleasant smell, because they have not been used for a long time SYN musty2 informalOLD-FASHIONED ideas or people that are fusty are old-fashioned fusty old academics —fustiness noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
fusty• Dry rot smells fusty and has white cobweb-pattern marks.• A number of young economists, impatient with such fusty arguments, began searching for new models.• Standing so close he smelt the fusty clothes and a sour whiff on the old man's breath.• The overall effect was grandfatherly-a gentleman of the old school, fusty, faintly absentminded, and deeply courteous.• The pages were stiffened with age and the tome smelt fusty, like a damp cloth left to dry on a radiator.• So, the artists' shell remains intact, the fusty public image undisturbed.• There was a cloying fusty smell rising from below, like drying clothes.• All the old fusty stuff had to be blown away, of course, so we might be nearer to nature.Origin fusty (1400-1500) fust “wooden wine container” ((15-16 centuries)), from Old French, from Latin fustis; → FUSTIAN 