scrappy
/ˈskrapi
/adjective (scrappier, scrappiest)
1Consisting of disorganized, untidy, or incomplete parts: scrappy lecture notes piled up unread...
- Certainly, the first 45 minutes were scrappy, untidy and bereft of anything resembling skilful football.
- But the trouble is that referees don't like his style - he is scrappy and sometimes untidy, and is not a puncher.
- A pair has made a scrappy, twiggy nest around six metres from the ground in one of Williams' pine trees.
Synonyms
disorganized, untidy, disjointed, unsystematic, thrown together, uneven, bitty, sketchy, superficial, perfunctory, slipshod, inadequate, imperfect, incoherent, piecemeal;
fragmentary, incomplete, unfinished, unpolished, deficient, defective
Mid 19th century: derivative of scrap1
2North American informal Determined, argumentative, or pugnacious: he had a scrappy New York temperament...
- The press remains scrappy and defiant, but its skepticism about lawyers has been embraced by the mainstream.
- They like scrappy players and are willing to put up with temperament that goes along with it.
- Jimmy sees himself as a feisty, scrappy, still up for it, 75-year-old bastard.
Late 19th century: derivative of scrap2
Derivatives
scrappily
- I talked a lot in class and, if my homework wasn't late, it was scrappily done.
- The game started off scrappily and never really recovered.
- They managed to publish some of their work - scrappily - but much was lost due to their haste and quarrels with Cook.
scrappiness
- Their opening goal typified the game in its scrappiness, before it sparked into life after the leveller.
- If there had been collective culpability for that scrappiness, there were glints of individual excellence to raise the curtain on the second half.
- An air of scrappiness hangs over the book; non-stop references to TV will make the book look so dated in five years.
Rhymes
- ride shotgun
- ride skimmington
- ride someone down
- ride something out
- ride the clutch
- ride the pine (or bench)
- ride the rods (or rails)
- ride to hounds
- ride up
- rideway
- ridge
- ridgeback
- ridge-band
- ridge barrow
- ridge bone
- ridge chain
- ridge crest
- ridge cucumber
- ridge-drill
- ridge form
- ridgel
- ridge land
- ridgelet
- ridgeline
- ridgeling