mangy
Americanadjective
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having, caused by, or like the mange.
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a mangy trick.
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a mangy little suburb.
adjective
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having or caused by mange
a mangy dog
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scruffy or shabby
a mangy carpet
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informal stingy or miserly
a mangy reward
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of mangy
Explanation
Imagine something really disgusting — crusty, dirty, falling apart — you know, like zombie flesh. If it’s shoddy, gross, and really, really cruddy, it can be called mangy. If you want a really insulting adjective, you can’t do better than the word mangy. A mangy dog has a skin disease carried by mites that causes the animal to lose its hair and develop crusty patches on its body. Or, if you own a mangy sweater, it is probably threadbare and stained. As you can imagine, you should probably think twice before calling a person mangy!
Vocabulary lists containing mangy
The Jungle Book
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The Help
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Guts
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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:
Besides, treating topical humor in the same way that a toothless, mangy mutt gums a dumpster bone is not the same as maintaining neutrality.
From Salon ● Jul. 31, 2025
In front of us was a derelict baseball diamond and mangy grass fields.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 27, 2024
The women wear black slips, combat boots and mangy fur coats; the men, gray suits and conservatively wide ties.
From New York Times ● May 21, 2023
At the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, mangy black bears were treated in a two-year trial experiment in 2017.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 6, 2022
I backed deeper into the darkness, but she’d caught my scent and started barking her mangy head off.
From "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
Instead, it embraced something mangier and more tethered to general youth culture.
From New York Times ● Nov. 3, 2016
And after that to be ready, al mangier ou al revele; i.e., to eat or to revel, according to the ordinance of the master and wardens of the fraternity.
From Old and New London Volume I by Thornbury, Walter
Hunters with the highest kill count, the mangiest kill or the largest or smallest take home cash, belt buckles, hunting gear or other prizes.
From US News ● Jan. 22, 2016
Orange-robed Buddhist monks contemplate under bougainvillaea and tamarind trees, watched by some of the mangiest dogs west of El Paso.
From Time Magazine Archive
Ill-shaven and semicomatose, Belushi plays the mangiest animal of them all.
From Time Magazine Archive
Master Billy came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the traces of a few tears in his eyes, and the mangiest of cur dogs in his hands.
From Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor by Masson, Thomas L.
This she opened with the tears streaming down her face, and out there waddled the fattest, ugliest, and mangiest little pug dog that I have ever seen.
From Round the Red Lamp by Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir
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.
