lousy
Americanadjective
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lousier,
comparative
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lousiest
superlative
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infested with lice.
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Informal.
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mean or contemptible.
That was a lousy thing to do.
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wretchedly bad; miserable.
a lousy job; I feel lousy.
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idioms
adjective
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slang very mean or unpleasant
a lousy thing to do
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slang inferior or bad
this is a lousy film
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infested with lice
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slang (foll by with)
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provided with an excessive amount (of)
he's lousy with money
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full of or teeming with
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Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of lousy
First recorded in 1350–1400, lousy is from the Middle English word lousi. See louse, -y 1
Explanation
Lousy things are terrible. The lousy things in life are the ones you complain about: your lousy job, the lousy weather, and the lousy pizza you had for lunch. The slang word lousy is the perfect way to describe something particularly awful or rotten. When you're sick, you feel lousy, and when someone is mean or rude, they treat you in a lousy way. The original, literal meaning of lousy is "infested with lice," those creepy crawly parasites that hang out on people's scalps. It was once common to say a place was "lousy with" something (like tourists or poodles) to mean "swarming with" them.
Vocabulary lists containing lousy
Oh, No! Synonyms for "Bad"
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So Bad: Synonyms for "Awful"
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Unfavorable
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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.
See Examples For:
You were simply ordering from the lousy ones.
From Salon ● Oct. 3, 2026
The chip maker’s $150 billion boost to its buyback authorization lighted a fire under its stock, tacking on $150 billion in market value Monday morning on a lousy day for tech stocks overall.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
Julianne Moore can do anything, even play an actor so lousy she can’t even convincingly walk across the stage of her local community theater.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
During closing arguments, Reddington, Clancy's lawyer, said she had made numerous pleas for help before the killings but had received "lousy medical care" from the doctors she consulted.
From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026
A lesser detective would have thought they were lousy prints.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
“What if she’d been a more single-minded journalist and a lousier friend?” he asked.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 10, 2022
Some combination of the following: slower processors, less storage, and lousier cameras than flagship phones, almost across the board.
From The Verge ● Aug. 8, 2022
Few workers in America have a lousier reputation just now than truckers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 15, 2022
But at 7 am on Monday morning, Kos Kaffe in Park Slope was even lousier than usual.
From New York Times ● Nov. 20, 2012
"Other than the BBC shutting down I cannot think of lousier media news," , who had written several columns for the magazine.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2012
But let’s give them praise because they have had the lousiest of weeks and they came out fighting.
From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2024
Like even the lousiest Regency-era frippery, it has its intermittent pleasures, most of them visual.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2022
Armstrong has finessed this trick throughout his writing and producing career, exploring how even at their lousiest, human beings are more relatable than many may want to believe.
From The Verge ● Oct. 11, 2019
Even in his lousiest pictures — “I made lots of low-budget movies,” he admitted — he’s a thing of beauty, a graceful, whirling dynamo.
From New York Times ● Nov. 30, 2017
Lena only went because she’s a cheerleader, and she said it was the lousiest turnout she’d ever seen for a Condors-Raiders matchup.
From "Schooled" by Gordon Korman
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
