shabby
pronunciation
How to pronounce shabby in British English:
UK [ˈʃæbi]
How to pronounce shabby in American English:
US [ˈʃæbi]
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- Adjective:
- showing signs of wear and tear
- mean and unworthy and despicable
Word Origin
- shabby
- shabby: [17] Etymologically, shabby means ‘scabby’. It comes from a now obsolete shab, which denoted ‘scab’, and also metaphorically ‘disreputable fellow’. It was the native equivalent to Old Norse *skabbr ‘scab’, from which English gets scab.=> scab
- shabby (adj.)
- 1660s, of persons, "poorly dressed," with -y (2) + shab "a low fellow" (1630s), literally "scab" (now only dialectal in the literal sense, in reference to a disease of sheep), from Old English sceabb (the native form of the Scandinavian word that yielded Modern English scab; also see sh-). Similar formation in Middle Dutch schabbich, German schäbig "shabby." Of clothes, furniture, etc., "of mean appearance, no longer new or fresh" from 1680s; meaning "inferior in quality" is from 1805. Figurative sense "contemptibly mean" is from 1670s. Related: Shabbily; shabbiness. Shabby-genteel "run-down but trying to keep up appearances, retaining in present shabbiness traces of former gentility," first recorded 1754. Related: Shabaroon "disreputable person," c. 1700.
Antonym
Example
- 1. Then I decided to visit the shabby local bar and get drunk on rum .
- 2. As part of his campaign to smarten up the market , which is not especially shabby , mr lavoie is happy to oblige .
- 3. Just hours after landing in pyongyang 's shabby airport - there is little air traffic - we were whisked to a special performance of the arirang games .
- 4. At first glance the middle-aged man , grinning widely to reveal missing teeth , holds the kind of shabby cardboard sign used by rough-sleepers the world over .
- 5. With the rest of the world flirting with recession , that is not too shabby .