Synonyms for bummy

sloppy?
grunge?

thinking...

dresses down
like a slob
like a bag lady

Hi Blackie and welcome to a2k. I'm sorry to sound pedantic in response to your question, but I don't see any way around it.

'Sarah always dresses bummy' is grammatically wrong. If you were to replace the word bummy with another word, you'd see why. "Sarah dresses well." "Sarah dresses poorly." These descriptive words are both adverbs. "Bummy" is an adjective. You won't be able to find a word to easily replace "bummy" without restructuring the sentence. Sarah is a slovenly dresser. Sarah is a sloppy dresser. Sarah is a bummy dresser. "Slovenly," "sloppy," and "bummy" are all adjectives.

I hope this helps. Sorry to sound so teachery.

Sarah dresses slovenly,
you'd think her feet were clovenly
like devil's hooves
but oh what moves!
She may look like a rummy,
but she sure can shake that bummy!

Never having run across the word "bummy" before, I am reluctant to disagree with you, Roberta. But if "bummy" is simply a slang term, what makes you think it is an adjective rather than an adverb? Isn't it possible that it could be both?

For instance, a person can both be cool (adj.) and act cool (adv.). I don't think one needs to say that one acts "coolly" in order to make "cool," in the latter example, an adverb. Granted, this isn't standard English (where "coolly" would be the expected construction), but then we're not dealing with standard English. I mean, we're not going to force Blackie_Chan to utter a monstrosity like "bummily," are we?

Roget's Interactive Thesaurus, First Edition names "bummy" as a synonym for the adjective 'ill'. [ The others are: a wreck, afflicted, ailing, barfy, below par, bum, diseased, down, down with, feeling awful, feeling rotten, feeling terrible, green, indisposed, infirm, laid low, laid up, off-color, peaked, poorly, pukey, punk, queasy, ratty, rocky, rotten, run down, running temperature, runs, seedy, trots, unhealthy, unwell, upchucking, woozy.]

Hi Joe, I have no problem with the saying, 'Sarah always dresses bummy.' If this is the way it's said, so be it. Blackie's question was about a synonym for "bummy." I don't think that one word can be replace "bummy" without changing the wording of the sentence to get to a part of speech that would be a one-word synonym.

How about Bummiliciously? Bummitudinously? Bumtastically?

I've always had a certain fondness for the word "raffish," but that would imply a certain style that is probably absent from Blackie's bummilicious exemplar Sarah.

Joe, Of your suggestions, I favor bummitudinous. It has a nice ring, don't you think?

Isn't bumitudinous that new rap trio?

Must be a Canajun expression. I've never heard the word 'bummy' before in my life. The US tendency would be to make some sort of a simile out of the phrase. "She dresses like a ..."

Sarah dresses like sh!t.

I guess it depends if this is for an academic paper or a pulp novel.

1) Who is the audience, and
2) What effect do you want?

That's supposed to be canajun? Must be subway langwidge or somethin'.

I dunno, ehBeth. Our friend Blackie_Chan sez he's from your hometown.

errrrr, no
tranna isn't my hometown
it's where i live now, but my hometown's at the other end of the lake - where hamburger and mrs. hamburger are
it's a very different world there
honest ta gawd, eh