shabby
shabby Lexical Profile
shabby Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
In poor condition through long or hard use or lack of care; worn, threadbare, or dilapidated.
"The professor wore a shabby tweed jacket with patched elbows to the morning lecture."
Mean, unfair, or ungenerous in behavior or treatment toward others.
"Leaving her to pay the entire bill without warning was a remarkably shabby way to treat a friend."
Of inferior quality, skill, or standard (often used in the understated phrase 'not too shabby').
"Finishing in third place out of five hundred runners is not too shabby for your first marathon."
• Rhymes for shabby
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Originating in the 17th century as a dialectal variant of 'scabby', the word derives from Old English 'sceabb' (meaning scab or itch), which gradually shifted from describing diseased skin to worn-out clothing and ungenerous behavior.