shabby
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈʃæbi/
rhymes: -æbi
Forms: form: shabbier
form: shabbiest
Etymology: The adjective is derived from shab (“(obsolete except UK, dialectal) scaly skin disease; skin disease of sheep; crust forming over wound, scab”) + -y (suffix meaning ‘having the quality of’ forming adjectives).
The verb is derived from the adjective.
Cognates
* Dutch schabbig (“poor, needy, shabby”)
* Middle High German schebic (modern German schäbig (“shabby”))
* Middle Low German schabbich (“miserable”) (modern Low German schabbig, schäbbig)
* Scots shabby (“in poor health, ill”)
* Swedish sjabbig (“shabby, mangy, scruffy”), skabbig (“scabby”)
Senses: examples: text: They lived in a tiny apartment, with some old, shabby furniture.
text: [A]s there was a stream of people pouring into a shabby house not far from the entrance, he waited until they had made their way in, […]
ref: 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, “Nicholas seeks to employ himself in a New Capacity, and being unsuccessful, accepts an engagement as Tutor in a Private Family”, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 143:
text: [C]ommonplace books are generally new, or at least in fine bindings. And here was a shabby little old book, such as, if it had been commonplace, would not have been likely to be the companion of a young lady at the bottom of a quarry— […]
ref: 1867, George MacDonald, “The Bishop’s Basin”, in Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood […], volume I, London: Hurst and Blackett, publishers, successors to Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 154:
text: [They] lived […] in one of the shabbiest streets in the debatable land between Pimlico and Chelsea—by courtesy, South Belgravia.
ref: 1882, [Mary Elizabeth Braddon], “‘And Pale from the Past We Draw nigh Thee’”, in Mount Royal […], volume II, London: John and Robert Maxwell […], →OCLC, page 179:
text: Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.
ref: 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
text: [T]hings got shabbier and got shabbier summer after summer. The mat was fading; the wall-paper was flapping. You couldn't tell any more that those were roses on it. Still, if every door in a house is left perpetually open, and no lockmaker in the whole of Scotland can mend a bolt, things must spoil.
ref: 1927 May, Virginia Woolf, chapter 5, in To the Lighthouse (Uniform Edition of the Works of Virginia Woolf), new edition, London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, […], published 1930, →OCLC, part I (The Window), page 47:
text: Another place where, from the aesthetic point of view, a long tunnel would have been a real blessing, is East London as viewed from the carriage window on the old Great Eastern line. Despite a vast change from crowded slums to tracts of wasteland, due to its grim wartime experience, this approach still provides a shabby and unworthy introduction to the great capital.
ref: 1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 703:
synonyms: word: decrepit
word: moth-eaten
word: run-down
word: timeworn
word: tired
word: clapped out
word: damaged
word: defective
word: deteriorated
word: dilapidated
word: effete
word: faulty
word: munted
word: outworn
word: passé
word: raddled
word: ragged
word: ravaged
word: rinky-dink
word: shabby
word: unimproved
word: wasted
word: weakened
word: wrecked
word: wrecksome
word: worn
word: worn-out
word: worsened
word: shabby
word: tacky
word: scroungy
word: beat
word: beat up
word: beaten up
word: bedraggled
word: broken-down
word: crumbling
word: derelict
word: dilapidated
word: draggled
word: neglected
word: ramshackle
word: ruinous
word: run-down
word: seedy
word: tatterdemalion
word: timeworn
word: tumbledown
glosses: Of clothing, a place, etc.: unkempt and worn or otherwise in poor condition due to age or neglect; scruffy.
examples: text: The fellow arrived looking rather shabby after journeying so far.
text: The ſame gentleman, vvhenever he vvanted credit for a ſuit of cloaths, alvvays made the propoſal in a laced coat; for he found by experience, that, if he appeared ſhabby on theſe occaſions, his taylor had taken an oath againſt truſting; […]
ref: 1765, [Oliver] Goldsmith, “Essay V”, in Essays. […], London: […] W[illiam] Griffin […], →OCLC, page 37:
text: She told her name, and vvas ſhevvn, by a little ſhabby foot-boy, into a parlour.
ref: 1782, [Frances Burney], “A Man of Wealth”, in Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress. […], volume I, London: […] T[homas] Payne and Son […], and T[homas] Cadell […], →OCLC, book II, page 156:
text: He was an affectionate brother, always glad to do a good turn to his sisters—who lived with a shabby old half-pay father, […]
ref: 1882, [Mary Elizabeth Braddon], “And Pale from the Past We Draw Nigh to Thee”, in Mount Royal […], volume II, London: John and Robert Maxwell […], →OCLC, page 179:
glosses: Of a person: wearing ragged or very worn, and often dirty, clothing.
examples: text: shabby treatment
text: It was voted a shabby excuse.
ref: 1856, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, “Of the Loves of Mr. Perkins and Miss Gorgon, and of the Two Great Factions in the Town of Oldborough”, in “The Bedford-Street Conspiracy”, in Miscellanies: Prose and Verse, volume III, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], →OCLC, page 473:
text: I, being more of a native, and familiar with their customs, knew that this shabby present was an insult to us.
ref: 1857, David Livingstone, chapter III, in Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa; […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 68:
text: What shabby things a man will do when he's eaten up with jealousy! But what a comfort those shabby things are to him! […] I'm disgusted with myself for having stooped to such a contemptible act.
ref: 1892 January 4 (first performance), W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, librettist; Alfred Cellier, [Ivan Caryll], composers, […] The Mountebanks, London: Chappell & Co., […], published 1892, →OCLC, Act I, page 11:
synonyms: word: ungenerous
word: as tight as Dick's hatband
word: cheap
word: cheeseparing
word: chintzy
word: close
word: close as wax
word: close-fisted
word: illiberal
word: mean
word: miserable
word: miserly
word: narrow-fisted
word: niggardly
word: nipcheese
word: parsimonious
word: peddling
word: penny-wise
word: penny-pinching
word: penurious
word: scrooge-like
word: scrubby
word: shabby
word: still got one's communion money
word: stingy
word: swear
word: tight
word: tight-fisted
word: tight as a tick
word: tighter than Dick's hatband
word: ungenerous
word: ungiving
glosses: Of a person, their behaviour, etc.: despicable, mean; also, not generous; stingy, tight-fisted.
examples: text: His painting is not too shabby.
text: [M]y Lord Duke's entertainments were both ſeldom and ſhabby […]
ref: 1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Campaign of 1707, 1708”, in The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. […] , volume II, London: […] Smith, Elder, & Company, […], →OCLC, page 252:
text: So unlooked-for a paradox required to be defended by the strongest arguments: who, then, would expect such shabby, not arguments, but hints of arguments, as the author presents us with?
ref: 1865, John Stuart Mill, “Of Some Minor Peculiarities of Doctrine in Sir William Hamilton’s View of Formal Logic”, in An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, […], London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, →OCLC, page 448:
qualifier: often in the negative
glosses: Poor in quality; also, showing little effort or talent.
topics: medicine
sciences
qualifier: often in the negative
glosses: Poor in quality; also, showing little effort or talent.
Of the pulse: thready, weak.
qualifier: often in the negative
glosses: Poor in quality; also, showing little effort or talent.
Of weather: wet and dreary.
topics: biology
medicine
natural-sciences
pathology
sciences
veterinary
zoology
qualifier: often in the negative
glosses: Poor in quality; also, showing little effort or talent.
Chiefly of sheep: affected by shab or scab (“a skin disease”); scabby.
Derived terms: shabbify
shabbily
shabbiness
shabby chic
shabby-genteel
shabbyish
unshabby