shabby

Meanings

Adjective Satellite

showing signs of wear and tear
- "shabby furniture"
mean and unworthy and despicable
- "shabby treatment"

Adj

Of clothing, a place, etc.: unkempt and worn or otherwise in poor condition due to age or neglect; scruffy.
Of a person: wearing ragged or very worn, and often dirty, clothing.
Of a person, their behaviour, etc.: despicable, mean; also, not generous; stingy, tight-fisted.
Poor in quality; also, showing little effort or talent.
Of the pulse: thready, weak.
Poor in quality; also, showing little effort or talent.
Of weather: wet and dreary.
Poor in quality; also, showing little effort or talent.
Chiefly of sheep: affected by shab or scab (“a skin disease”); scabby.
Poor in quality; also, showing little effort or talent.

Verb

To make (something) shabby (adjective sense 1); to shabbify.
To become shabby; to shabbify.

Origin / 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”)

Synonyms

as tight as Dick's hatband, beat, beat up, beaten up, bedraggled, broken-down, cheap, cheeseparing, chintzy, clapped out, close, close as wax, close-fisted, crumbling, damaged, decrepit, defective, derelict, deteriorated, dilapidated, draggled, effete, faulty, illiberal, mean, miserable, miserly, moth-eaten, munted, narrow-fisted, neglected, niggardly, nipcheese, outworn, parsimonious, passé, peddling, penny-pinching, penny-wise, penurious, raddled, ragged, ramshackle, ratty, ravaged, rinky-dink, ruinous, run-down, scrooge-like, scrubby, seedy, shabby, still got one's communion money, stingy, swear, tatterdemalion, tatty, tight, tight as a tick, tight-fisted, tighter than Dick's hatband, timeworn, tired, tumbledown, ungenerous, ungiving, unimproved, wasted, weakened, worn, worn-out, worsened, wrecked, wrecksome

Scrabble Score: 16

shabby is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL word
shabby is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
shabby is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 16

shabby is a valid Words With Friends word