lousy
Americanadjective
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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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Ollie in Between
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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:
“That’s a lousy excuse,” scolded former Speaker of the House John Boehner when I described my situation to him.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
If Switzerland plays lousy, then I’m going to be pissed, but I think they’ll do better than in the first game.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2026
One reason the stock market has performed so much better in recent years is that investors weren’t being temped by yields in the bond market, which have been lousy.
From MarketWatch ● May 22, 2026
That, along with low pay, lousy conditions and brutal management techniques, limited its appeal.
From Barron's ● May 20, 2026
“And a lousy one at that,” added Mr. Stokely.
From "The Million Dollar Shot" by Dan Gutman
“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
Here was Strasburg’s grimace, the pummeling of his own glove, and the shake-out of his arm that, to baseball players, almost always means the lousiest of things.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 7, 2016
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
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.
