scabby
adj/ˈskæb.i/
Etymology From Middle English scabby, scabbie, equivalent to scab + -y. Doublet of shabby.
1
Affected with scabs; full of scabs.
- Her wrizled skin, as rough as maple rind, So scabby was, that would have loath'd all womankind.1590, Edmund Spenser, “(please specify the book)”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
2
Diseased with the scab (mange): mangy.
3
Media, Printing, Publishing Having a blotched, uneven appearance.
4
Injured by the attachment of barnacles to the carapace of a shell.
5
Working against union policies, working to bust unions; in particular, being a scab (worker who crosses a union picket line).
- The police, the governor, and the "scabby" Hearst Examiner "received a tremendous razzing," according to the Waterfront Worker, while all along the line of march "the workers on the sidelines cheered[…]"1990, Bruce Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s, University of Illinois Press, →ISBN, page 166:
- [They're a] scabby right-to-work company and they don't care how much the sharp edges on that dust screw up a guy's lungs.2016 August 31, David M. Caulfield, Ever a Fighter: The Adventures of Katherine Wilkinson, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN:
1 more example
- Hoochie's dad said, “All eight drivers are former 'scabby' employees who couldn't get hired by any reputable union trucking companies.”2021 July 28, Michael F. McCarthy Colonel USAF (Ret), Memories of a Jane Street Boy: Family Influences and The Early Years, Dorrance Publishing, →ISBN, page 295:
- The chipper was a bit scabby on the vinegar today.
- I lent you a fiver last week and you still haven’t paid me back, you scabby bastard!
1 more example
- You never bring you’re own pen but always ask to borrow mine, you scabby git!
- Antonyms
- smooth
- Derived terms
- scabbily, scabbiness, scabby sheep
- Hypernyms
- rough