fusty

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The Word of the Day for February 4 is: 

fusty   \FUSS-tee\   adj
     1 British : impaired by age or dampness : moldy
     2 : saturated with dust and stale odors : musty 
    *3 : rigidly old-fashioned or reactionary 

Example sentence:
     Tweed jackets and horn-rimmed glasses give Professor 
Mitchell a fusty air, but he's actually much hipper than he 
looks.

Did you know?
     "Fusty" probably derives from the Middle English 
word "foist," meaning "wine cask," which in turn traces to the 
Medieval Latin word "fustis," meaning "tree trunk" or "wood." 
So how did "fusty" end up meaning "old-fashioned"? Originally, 
it described wine that had gotten stale from sitting in the 
cask for too long; "fusty" literally meant that the wine had 
the "taste of the cask." Eventually any stale food, especially 
damp or moldy food, was called "fusty." Those damp and moldy 
connotations were later applied to musty places, and later 
still to anything that had lost its freshness and interest -- 
that is, to anything old-fashioned.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.