Shabby

/ˈʃæbi/ · adjective

Meaning

Of clothing, a place, etc.: unkempt and worn or otherwise in poor condition due to age or neglect; scruffy..

Definitions by Sense

1. Of clothing, a place, etc.: unkempt and worn or otherwise in poor condition due to age or neglect; scruffy.
2. Of a person: wearing ragged or very worn, and often dirty, clothing.
3. Of a person, their behaviour, etc.: despicable, mean; also, not generous; stingy, tight-fisted.
4. Poor in quality; also, showing little effort or talent.
5. (transitive) To make (something) shabby (adjective sense 1); to shabbify.
6. (intransitive) To become shabby; to shabbify.

Example Sentences

They lived in a tiny apartment, with some old, shabby furniture.

[A]s there was a stream of people pouring into a shabby house not far from the entrance, he waited until they had made their way in, […]

[C]ommonplace books are generally new, or at least in fine bindings. And here was a shabby little old book, such as, if it had been commonplace, would not have been likely to be the companion of a young lady at the bottom of a quarry— […]

[They] lived […] in one of the shabbiest streets in the debatable land between Pimlico and Chelsea—by courtesy, South Belgravia.

Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.

[T]hings got shabbier and got shabbier summer after summer. The mat was fading; the wall-paper was flapping. You couldn't tell any more that those were roses on it. Still, if every door in a house is left perpetually open, and no lockmaker in the whole of Scotland can mend a bolt, things must spoil.

Another place where, from the aesthetic point of view, a long tunnel would have been a real blessing, is East London as viewed from the carriage window on the old Great Eastern line. Despite a vast change from crowded slums to tracts of wasteland, due to its grim wartime experience, this approach still provides a shabby and unworthy introduction to the great capital.

The fellow arrived looking rather shabby after journeying so far.

Synonyms for shabby

Antonyms for shabby

Related Words

Word Forms

• shabbier
• shabbiest
• shabbies
• shabbying
• shabbied

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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