adjective
-
roughened because of small projections; scaly
-
indelicate, indecent, or salacious
scabrous humour
-
difficult to deal with; knotty
Other Word Forms
- scabrously adverb
- scabrousness noun
- unscabrous adjective
- unscabrously adverb
- unscabrousness noun
Etymology
Origin of scabrous
1575–85; < Latin scab ( e ) r rough + -ous
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Beatty’s scabrous satire follows a Black man who decides to reinstate slavery in his rural Los Angeles enclave, a crime for which he finds himself in the hallowed halls of the Supreme Court.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 14, 2025
The theater lost the case, and both “Saved” and Bond’s next play, “Early Morning,” a scabrous satire on British royalty, were banned in Britain.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 5, 2024
His songs blended the scabrous and the sentimental, ranging from carousing anthems to snapshots of life in the gutter to unexpectedly tender love songs.
From Washington Times • Nov. 30, 2023
Closing track Pop The Balloon is a scabrous onslaught of cactus-prick guitar riffs, as the inhabitants fall out and the seeds of revolution are sown.
From BBC • Jul. 5, 2023
Native speakers may not fully know this, but English is a scabrous mouthful.
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
