WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
adverb.
in a dowdy unfashionable manner
Word Usage
"No one could deny that Grace was clever, but she was poor, dressed very plainly -- "dowdily," the girls said -- and "roomed" herself, that phrase meaning that she rented a little unfurnished room and cooked her own meals over an oil stove."