scab
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /skæb/
rhymes: -æb
Forms: form: scabs
Etymology: From Middle English scabb, scabbe (also as shabbe, schabbe > English shab), from Old English sċeabb and Old Norse skabb, both from Proto-Germanic *skabbaz (“scab, scabies”), from Proto-Indo-European *skabʰ- (“to cut, split, carve, shape”). Doublet of shab. Cognate with German Schabe (“scabies”), Danish skab (“scab, scabies”), Swedish skabb (“scab, scabies”), Latin scabies (“scab, itch, mange”). Related also to Old English scafan (“to scrape, shave”), Latin scabere (“to scratch”), English shabby.
Senses: glosses: An incrustation over a sore, wound, vesicle, or pustule, formed during healing.
glosses: The scabies.
examples: text: Scab was the terror of the sheep farmer, and the peril of his calling.
ref: 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 306:
glosses: The mange, especially when it appears on sheep.
coordinate_terms: blight
glosses: Any of several different diseases of potatoes producing pits and other damage on their surface, caused by streptomyces bacteria (but formerly believed to be caused by a fungus).
glosses: Common scab, a relatively harmless variety of scab (potato disease) caused by Streptomyces scabies.
topics: biology
botany
medicine
natural-sciences
pathology
phytopathology
sciences
glosses: Any one of various more or less destructive fungal diseases that attack cultivated plants, forming dark-colored crustlike spots.
coordinate_terms: word: flash
english: material left around the edge of a moulded part
translation: material left around the edge of a moulded part
qualifier: founding
glosses: A slight irregular protuberance which defaces the surface of a casting, caused by the breaking away of a part of the mold.
examples: text: Out, scab!
ref: c. 1601–1602, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act 2, scene 5:
text: I would make thee the / loathsomest scab in Greece.
ref: c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
synonyms: word: antimodel
word: bad guy
word: baddie
word: bastard
word: blackguard
word: bounder
word: cad
word: coistril
word: evildoer
word: fustilarian
word: harlot
word: heavy
word: knave
word: lidderon
word: makeshift
word: miscreant
word: ne'er-do-well
word: niding
word: nithing
word: rapscallion
word: rascal
word: rogue
word: scab
word: scamp
word: scapegrace
word: scoundrel
word: scum
word: scumbag
word: thug
word: undesirable
word: varlet
word: villain
glosses: A mean, dirty, paltry fellow.
examples: text: When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out.
ref: c. 1910s, London, Jack (attributed), The Scab
synonyms: blackleg
blacklegger
knobstick
scalie
glosses: A worker who acts against trade union policies; any picket crosser (strikebreaker), and especially one with devotion to union busting.
Derived terms: apple scab
crown scab
powdery scab
scab duty
scab union
Related terms: scabies
scabrous