Definition of shabby in English:

shabby

adjectiveshabbier, shabbiest ˈʃabiˈʃæbi

1In poor condition through long use or lack of care.
a conscript in a shabby uniform saluted the car
Example sentencesExamples
- They were in shabby condition, having fallen into disrepair.
- All of the houses were wooden, and most of the people were dressed in shabby clothes.
- The boy, wearing a formal but slightly shabby overcoat, is standing, while his mother is seated, so his head is slightly higher than hers.
- Yet their fictional lives are placed in direct contrast with their shabby and poor surroundings.
- The men are dressed in shabby, quilted jackets; they are bareheaded and barefoot.
- It was small, cheap, and shabby, but she had still called it home for the last few years.
- It was much simpler in the old days when everyone had to decorate their homes with the look of the moment, whether it was casual ethnic, urban contemporary, country floral or shabby chic.
- He was standing in a room, now wearing a pair of grey pants, a white short-sleeved shirt, and a pair of shabby looking boots.
- The hospital wards are shabby and rundown, staff spend as much time filling out forms as dealing with patients, everyone is overworked and over stressed.
- Maybe it's the lack of people, the lack of cars and the shuttered shabby houses.
- And when some of the finer diners cast a disdainful eye upon their shabby, old-fashioned dresses, the two women merely giggled and stared right back at them.
- I muttered, eyes glued to those clothes, worn and shabby looking.
- We are running short of food, our uniforms are shabby and dull, our shoes are full of holes, and we are also short on ammunition.
- Sadness filled Jason's eyes and he stood there looking at Trevor with his shabby clothes and worn shoes.
- ‘Got a letter here I'd like to be mailed,’ the young man said handing the letter to the short stocky man sitting on a small cot in the shabby tent.
- I stayed with them in their base at Sukhum, a shabby old Soviet hotel with peacocks in the garden.
- Warsaw is still full of grey Soviet-style buildings, a few haphazardly-built modern high rises and shabby stores selling cheap goods.
- Regardless of the kitchen's shabby condition, this was home to Isis.
- He habitually wore shabby tweeds and a cloth cap of the kind favoured by Cockney barrow boys, also by country squires.
- When confronted with the reality of a shabby and hostile England unlike the England of her dreams, she is utterly horrified.
Synonyms
run down, down at heel, scruffy, uncared-for, neglected, dilapidated, in disrepair, ramshackle, tumbledown
dingy, seedy, slummy, insalubrious, squalid, sordid, mean, wretched, miserable
informal crummy, scuzzy, tacky, grungy, shambly, beat-up
British informal grotty
North American informal shacky
1. 1.1 Dressed in old or worn clothes.
  a shabby fellow in slippers and an undershirt
  Example sentencesExamples
  There was an aura of displacement about him, I felt, and it wasn't because of his ragged clothes or the shabby appearance.
  Confucius said, ‘Lavishness leads to arrogance, frugality leads to shabbiness, but it is better to be shabby than arrogant’.
  I was pretty shabby coming right from the hospital.
  She's a shabby infant among lawyers clad in immaculate coal-coloured, pleated robes.
  Apart from his improper and shabby looks, his weird name became the object of her cruel jokes.
  Synonyms
  scruffy, well worn, worn, old, worn out, threadbare, moth-eaten, mangy, ragged, frayed, tattered, battered, decrepit, having seen better days, falling apart at the seams
2(of behaviour) mean and unfair.
Snooping, was he? That's a shabby trick
Example sentencesExamples
- The door holds fast for just a moment before giving, groaning its displeasure at the shabby treatment it has recently received.
- Sadly, that same sort of shabby treatment has been accorded some of the mystery world's most beloved authors.
- It is a shabby and disrespectful epitaph for the tweedy old Bernard Quatermass and his adventures, which date back almost to the advent of television.
- Despite his sometimes shabby behavior, he has nobility of spirit compared to the bigger-budget showbiz types who are his rivals.
- This was, I find, a piece of calculatedly shabby behaviour by which he hoped he might seize some tactical advantage over Mrs Ellis.
- Of some sociological interest is the shabby treatment of Anne by the other leads.
- Finally, on the biographical debit side there are the usual miscellaneous acts of thoughtlessness, rudeness and generally shabby behaviour.
- Why does he think her shabby treatment of you is acceptable?
- If the rest of the world isn't getting this kind of shabby treatment, why should we?
- If Huck had felt ‘ornery’ and insignificant in the face of Providence Jim is capable of the same emotion when he recalls his shabby treatment of Elizabeth.
- ‘Their increasingly shabby treatment of people like me is one of the reasons their results are in a tailspin,’ said my friend.
- By all accounts, the denunciations of shabby treatment by various news and current affairs programs come from around the room.
Synonyms
contemptible, despicable, dishonourable, disreputable, discreditable, mean, mean-spirited, base, low, dirty, shameful, sorry, ignoble, unfair, unworthy, ungenerous, unkind, ungentlemanly, cheap, shoddy, unpleasant, nasty
informal rotten, low-down, hateful
British informal beastly
vulgar slang shitty
archaic scurvy

Derivatives

shabbily

adverb ˈʃabɪli

Most of them were barefoot and shabbily dressed.
Example sentencesExamples
- He was sensitive enough to recognize that racism was an anti-American outrage, proud enough never to accept it, and financially successful enough to live out his autumn years in the same town that once treated him so shabbily.
- We had also gone to the Centre with a begging bowl, but were shabbily treated.
- While the police exhibited a great nervousness about what appeared to be a few shabbily dressed kids making vague assertions, the kids were amazingly at ease, at one point getting up to dance and sing.
- According to them they too are shabbily treated.

shabbiness

noun ˈʃabɪnəsˈʃæbinəs

Why don't people do something about the shabbiness that surrounds us?
Example sentencesExamples
- Great art is a celebration: ‘The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter.’
- However, he soon began to realise that the shabbiness of his study was at odds with the elegance of the gown.
- It has a certain shabbiness now, and that's unfortunate as it is only a very small proportion of the population which makes it that way.
- Some of its most loyal clients have taken their productions elsewhere, complaining of its general shabbiness.

Origin

Mid 17th century: from dialect shab 'scab' (from a Germanic base meaning 'itch') + -y¹.

scab from Middle English:
This comes from Old Norse, going back to a Germanic root meaning ‘itch’. The sense ‘contemptible person’ dating from the late 16th century was probably influenced by Middle Dutch schabbe ‘slut’. It was used to refer to a blackleg in a strike from the mid 18th century, originally in the USA. Shabby (mid 17th century) comes from a dialect variant of the source of scab. Dr Johnson wrote that shabby was: ‘A word that has crept into conversation and low writing, but ought not to be admitted into the language’.

Rhymes

abbey, cabby, crabby, flabby, gabby, grabby, Rabbie, scabby, tabby, yabby

Definition of shabby in US English:

shabby

adjectiveˈSHabēˈʃæbi

1In poor condition through long or hard use or lack of care.
a conscript in a shabby uniform saluted the car
Example sentencesExamples
- All of the houses were wooden, and most of the people were dressed in shabby clothes.
- The men are dressed in shabby, quilted jackets; they are bareheaded and barefoot.
- I muttered, eyes glued to those clothes, worn and shabby looking.
- It was small, cheap, and shabby, but she had still called it home for the last few years.
- Yet their fictional lives are placed in direct contrast with their shabby and poor surroundings.
- The boy, wearing a formal but slightly shabby overcoat, is standing, while his mother is seated, so his head is slightly higher than hers.
- ‘Got a letter here I'd like to be mailed,’ the young man said handing the letter to the short stocky man sitting on a small cot in the shabby tent.
- We are running short of food, our uniforms are shabby and dull, our shoes are full of holes, and we are also short on ammunition.
- Maybe it's the lack of people, the lack of cars and the shuttered shabby houses.
- And when some of the finer diners cast a disdainful eye upon their shabby, old-fashioned dresses, the two women merely giggled and stared right back at them.
- Warsaw is still full of grey Soviet-style buildings, a few haphazardly-built modern high rises and shabby stores selling cheap goods.
- They were in shabby condition, having fallen into disrepair.
- It was much simpler in the old days when everyone had to decorate their homes with the look of the moment, whether it was casual ethnic, urban contemporary, country floral or shabby chic.
- Sadness filled Jason's eyes and he stood there looking at Trevor with his shabby clothes and worn shoes.
- When confronted with the reality of a shabby and hostile England unlike the England of her dreams, she is utterly horrified.
- He habitually wore shabby tweeds and a cloth cap of the kind favoured by Cockney barrow boys, also by country squires.
- I stayed with them in their base at Sukhum, a shabby old Soviet hotel with peacocks in the garden.
- He was standing in a room, now wearing a pair of grey pants, a white short-sleeved shirt, and a pair of shabby looking boots.
- The hospital wards are shabby and rundown, staff spend as much time filling out forms as dealing with patients, everyone is overworked and over stressed.
- Regardless of the kitchen's shabby condition, this was home to Isis.
Synonyms
run down, down at heel, scruffy, uncared-for, neglected, dilapidated, in disrepair, ramshackle, tumbledown
scruffy, well worn, worn, old, worn out, threadbare, moth-eaten, mangy, ragged, frayed, tattered, battered, decrepit, having seen better days, falling apart at the seams
1. 1.1 Dressed in old or worn clothes.
  Example sentencesExamples
  Apart from his improper and shabby looks, his weird name became the object of her cruel jokes.
  I was pretty shabby coming right from the hospital.
  She's a shabby infant among lawyers clad in immaculate coal-coloured, pleated robes.
  There was an aura of displacement about him, I felt, and it wasn't because of his ragged clothes or the shabby appearance.
  Confucius said, ‘Lavishness leads to arrogance, frugality leads to shabbiness, but it is better to be shabby than arrogant’.
  Synonyms
  scruffy, well worn, worn, old, worn out, threadbare, moth-eaten, mangy, ragged, frayed, tattered, battered, decrepit, having seen better days, falling apart at the seams
2. 1.2 (of behavior) mean and shameful.
  shabby, disrespectful treatment
  Example sentencesExamples
  This was, I find, a piece of calculatedly shabby behaviour by which he hoped he might seize some tactical advantage over Mrs Ellis.
  Finally, on the biographical debit side there are the usual miscellaneous acts of thoughtlessness, rudeness and generally shabby behaviour.
  If Huck had felt ‘ornery’ and insignificant in the face of Providence Jim is capable of the same emotion when he recalls his shabby treatment of Elizabeth.
  ‘Their increasingly shabby treatment of people like me is one of the reasons their results are in a tailspin,’ said my friend.
  If the rest of the world isn't getting this kind of shabby treatment, why should we?
  Why does he think her shabby treatment of you is acceptable?
  Despite his sometimes shabby behavior, he has nobility of spirit compared to the bigger-budget showbiz types who are his rivals.
  By all accounts, the denunciations of shabby treatment by various news and current affairs programs come from around the room.
  It is a shabby and disrespectful epitaph for the tweedy old Bernard Quatermass and his adventures, which date back almost to the advent of television.
  Of some sociological interest is the shabby treatment of Anne by the other leads.
  The door holds fast for just a moment before giving, groaning its displeasure at the shabby treatment it has recently received.
  Sadly, that same sort of shabby treatment has been accorded some of the mystery world's most beloved authors.
  Synonyms
  contemptible, despicable, dishonourable, disreputable, discreditable, mean, mean-spirited, base, low, dirty, shameful, sorry, ignoble, unfair, unworthy, ungenerous, unkind, ungentlemanly, cheap, shoddy, unpleasant, nasty

Origin

Mid 17th century: from dialect shab ‘scab’ (from a Germanic base meaning ‘itch’) + -y.

单词	shabby
释义	Definition of shabby in English: shabby adjectiveshabbier, shabbiest ˈʃabiˈʃæbi 1In poor condition through long use or lack of care. a conscript in a shabby uniform saluted the car Example sentencesExamples They were in shabby condition, having fallen into disrepair. All of the houses were wooden, and most of the people were dressed in shabby clothes. The boy, wearing a formal but slightly shabby overcoat, is standing, while his mother is seated, so his head is slightly higher than hers. Yet their fictional lives are placed in direct contrast with their shabby and poor surroundings. The men are dressed in shabby, quilted jackets; they are bareheaded and barefoot. It was small, cheap, and shabby, but she had still called it home for the last few years. It was much simpler in the old days when everyone had to decorate their homes with the look of the moment, whether it was casual ethnic, urban contemporary, country floral or shabby chic. He was standing in a room, now wearing a pair of grey pants, a white short-sleeved shirt, and a pair of shabby looking boots. The hospital wards are shabby and rundown, staff spend as much time filling out forms as dealing with patients, everyone is overworked and over stressed. Maybe it's the lack of people, the lack of cars and the shuttered shabby houses. And when some of the finer diners cast a disdainful eye upon their shabby, old-fashioned dresses, the two women merely giggled and stared right back at them. I muttered, eyes glued to those clothes, worn and shabby looking. We are running short of food, our uniforms are shabby and dull, our shoes are full of holes, and we are also short on ammunition. Sadness filled Jason's eyes and he stood there looking at Trevor with his shabby clothes and worn shoes. ‘Got a letter here I'd like to be mailed,’ the young man said handing the letter to the short stocky man sitting on a small cot in the shabby tent. I stayed with them in their base at Sukhum, a shabby old Soviet hotel with peacocks in the garden. Warsaw is still full of grey Soviet-style buildings, a few haphazardly-built modern high rises and shabby stores selling cheap goods. Regardless of the kitchen's shabby condition, this was home to Isis. He habitually wore shabby tweeds and a cloth cap of the kind favoured by Cockney barrow boys, also by country squires. When confronted with the reality of a shabby and hostile England unlike the England of her dreams, she is utterly horrified. Synonyms run down, down at heel, scruffy, uncared-for, neglected, dilapidated, in disrepair, ramshackle, tumbledown dingy, seedy, slummy, insalubrious, squalid, sordid, mean, wretched, miserable informal crummy, scuzzy, tacky, grungy, shambly, beat-up British informal grotty North American informal shacky 1.1 Dressed in old or worn clothes. a shabby fellow in slippers and an undershirt Example sentencesExamples There was an aura of displacement about him, I felt, and it wasn't because of his ragged clothes or the shabby appearance. Confucius said, ‘Lavishness leads to arrogance, frugality leads to shabbiness, but it is better to be shabby than arrogant’. I was pretty shabby coming right from the hospital. She's a shabby infant among lawyers clad in immaculate coal-coloured, pleated robes. Apart from his improper and shabby looks, his weird name became the object of her cruel jokes. Synonyms scruffy, well worn, worn, old, worn out, threadbare, moth-eaten, mangy, ragged, frayed, tattered, battered, decrepit, having seen better days, falling apart at the seams 2(of behaviour) mean and unfair. Snooping, was he? That's a shabby trick Example sentencesExamples The door holds fast for just a moment before giving, groaning its displeasure at the shabby treatment it has recently received. Sadly, that same sort of shabby treatment has been accorded some of the mystery world's most beloved authors. It is a shabby and disrespectful epitaph for the tweedy old Bernard Quatermass and his adventures, which date back almost to the advent of television. Despite his sometimes shabby behavior, he has nobility of spirit compared to the bigger-budget showbiz types who are his rivals. This was, I find, a piece of calculatedly shabby behaviour by which he hoped he might seize some tactical advantage over Mrs Ellis. Of some sociological interest is the shabby treatment of Anne by the other leads. Finally, on the biographical debit side there are the usual miscellaneous acts of thoughtlessness, rudeness and generally shabby behaviour. Why does he think her shabby treatment of you is acceptable? If the rest of the world isn't getting this kind of shabby treatment, why should we? If Huck had felt ‘ornery’ and insignificant in the face of Providence Jim is capable of the same emotion when he recalls his shabby treatment of Elizabeth. ‘Their increasingly shabby treatment of people like me is one of the reasons their results are in a tailspin,’ said my friend. By all accounts, the denunciations of shabby treatment by various news and current affairs programs come from around the room. Synonyms contemptible, despicable, dishonourable, disreputable, discreditable, mean, mean-spirited, base, low, dirty, shameful, sorry, ignoble, unfair, unworthy, ungenerous, unkind, ungentlemanly, cheap, shoddy, unpleasant, nasty informal rotten, low-down, hateful British informal beastly vulgar slang shitty archaic scurvy Derivatives shabbily adverb ˈʃabɪli Most of them were barefoot and shabbily dressed. Example sentencesExamples He was sensitive enough to recognize that racism was an anti-American outrage, proud enough never to accept it, and financially successful enough to live out his autumn years in the same town that once treated him so shabbily. We had also gone to the Centre with a begging bowl, but were shabbily treated. While the police exhibited a great nervousness about what appeared to be a few shabbily dressed kids making vague assertions, the kids were amazingly at ease, at one point getting up to dance and sing. According to them they too are shabbily treated. shabbiness noun ˈʃabɪnəsˈʃæbinəs Why don't people do something about the shabbiness that surrounds us? Example sentencesExamples Great art is a celebration: ‘The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter.’ However, he soon began to realise that the shabbiness of his study was at odds with the elegance of the gown. It has a certain shabbiness now, and that's unfortunate as it is only a very small proportion of the population which makes it that way. Some of its most loyal clients have taken their productions elsewhere, complaining of its general shabbiness. Origin Mid 17th century: from dialect shab 'scab' (from a Germanic base meaning 'itch') + -y¹. scab from Middle English: This comes from Old Norse, going back to a Germanic root meaning ‘itch’. The sense ‘contemptible person’ dating from the late 16th century was probably influenced by Middle Dutch schabbe ‘slut’. It was used to refer to a blackleg in a strike from the mid 18th century, originally in the USA. Shabby (mid 17th century) comes from a dialect variant of the source of scab. Dr Johnson wrote that shabby was: ‘A word that has crept into conversation and low writing, but ought not to be admitted into the language’. Rhymes abbey, cabby, crabby, flabby, gabby, grabby, Rabbie, scabby, tabby, yabby Definition of shabby in US English: shabby adjectiveˈSHabēˈʃæbi 1In poor condition through long or hard use or lack of care. a conscript in a shabby uniform saluted the car Example sentencesExamples All of the houses were wooden, and most of the people were dressed in shabby clothes. The men are dressed in shabby, quilted jackets; they are bareheaded and barefoot. I muttered, eyes glued to those clothes, worn and shabby looking. It was small, cheap, and shabby, but she had still called it home for the last few years. Yet their fictional lives are placed in direct contrast with their shabby and poor surroundings. The boy, wearing a formal but slightly shabby overcoat, is standing, while his mother is seated, so his head is slightly higher than hers. ‘Got a letter here I'd like to be mailed,’ the young man said handing the letter to the short stocky man sitting on a small cot in the shabby tent. We are running short of food, our uniforms are shabby and dull, our shoes are full of holes, and we are also short on ammunition. Maybe it's the lack of people, the lack of cars and the shuttered shabby houses. And when some of the finer diners cast a disdainful eye upon their shabby, old-fashioned dresses, the two women merely giggled and stared right back at them. Warsaw is still full of grey Soviet-style buildings, a few haphazardly-built modern high rises and shabby stores selling cheap goods. They were in shabby condition, having fallen into disrepair. It was much simpler in the old days when everyone had to decorate their homes with the look of the moment, whether it was casual ethnic, urban contemporary, country floral or shabby chic. Sadness filled Jason's eyes and he stood there looking at Trevor with his shabby clothes and worn shoes. When confronted with the reality of a shabby and hostile England unlike the England of her dreams, she is utterly horrified. He habitually wore shabby tweeds and a cloth cap of the kind favoured by Cockney barrow boys, also by country squires. I stayed with them in their base at Sukhum, a shabby old Soviet hotel with peacocks in the garden. He was standing in a room, now wearing a pair of grey pants, a white short-sleeved shirt, and a pair of shabby looking boots. The hospital wards are shabby and rundown, staff spend as much time filling out forms as dealing with patients, everyone is overworked and over stressed. Regardless of the kitchen's shabby condition, this was home to Isis. Synonyms run down, down at heel, scruffy, uncared-for, neglected, dilapidated, in disrepair, ramshackle, tumbledown scruffy, well worn, worn, old, worn out, threadbare, moth-eaten, mangy, ragged, frayed, tattered, battered, decrepit, having seen better days, falling apart at the seams 1.1 Dressed in old or worn clothes. Example sentencesExamples Apart from his improper and shabby looks, his weird name became the object of her cruel jokes. I was pretty shabby coming right from the hospital. She's a shabby infant among lawyers clad in immaculate coal-coloured, pleated robes. There was an aura of displacement about him, I felt, and it wasn't because of his ragged clothes or the shabby appearance. Confucius said, ‘Lavishness leads to arrogance, frugality leads to shabbiness, but it is better to be shabby than arrogant’. Synonyms scruffy, well worn, worn, old, worn out, threadbare, moth-eaten, mangy, ragged, frayed, tattered, battered, decrepit, having seen better days, falling apart at the seams 1.2 (of behavior) mean and shameful. shabby, disrespectful treatment Example sentencesExamples This was, I find, a piece of calculatedly shabby behaviour by which he hoped he might seize some tactical advantage over Mrs Ellis. Finally, on the biographical debit side there are the usual miscellaneous acts of thoughtlessness, rudeness and generally shabby behaviour. If Huck had felt ‘ornery’ and insignificant in the face of Providence Jim is capable of the same emotion when he recalls his shabby treatment of Elizabeth. ‘Their increasingly shabby treatment of people like me is one of the reasons their results are in a tailspin,’ said my friend. If the rest of the world isn't getting this kind of shabby treatment, why should we? Why does he think her shabby treatment of you is acceptable? Despite his sometimes shabby behavior, he has nobility of spirit compared to the bigger-budget showbiz types who are his rivals. By all accounts, the denunciations of shabby treatment by various news and current affairs programs come from around the room. It is a shabby and disrespectful epitaph for the tweedy old Bernard Quatermass and his adventures, which date back almost to the advent of television. Of some sociological interest is the shabby treatment of Anne by the other leads. The door holds fast for just a moment before giving, groaning its displeasure at the shabby treatment it has recently received. Sadly, that same sort of shabby treatment has been accorded some of the mystery world's most beloved authors. Synonyms contemptible, despicable, dishonourable, disreputable, discreditable, mean, mean-spirited, base, low, dirty, shameful, sorry, ignoble, unfair, unworthy, ungenerous, unkind, ungentlemanly, cheap, shoddy, unpleasant, nasty Origin Mid 17th century: from dialect shab ‘scab’ (from a Germanic base meaning ‘itch’) + -y.
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