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Showing results for scraggy. Search instead for scraggiest.
Synonyms

scraggy

American  
[skrag-ee] / ˈskræg i /

adjective

scraggier, scraggiest
  1. lean or thin; scrawny.

  2. meager.

  3. irregular; craggy; jagged.


scraggy British  
/ ˈskræɡɪ /

adjective

  1. lean or scrawny

  2. rough; unkempt

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms


Etymology

Origin of scraggy

First recorded in 1565–75; scrag + -y 1


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:

The soldiers call it a forest, though it's just a line of scraggy trees separating them from Russian positions.

From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2025

Alberto Giacometti’s sculptures of tall, elegantly scraggy humans loom large in people’s minds.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 19, 2022

Unaccountably angry and smug, the scraggy Smithers is Brutus’s cynical, conniving cohort.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 3, 2017

He has a way with dimension: Three simple lines on the page can give a demon’s skin texture or reveal the scraggy ribs on the underbelly of a winged hell beast. 

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 2, 2016

The thin shoulders were hunched forward so as to make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy neck seemed to be bending double under the weight of the skull.

From "1984" by George Orwell

After leaving the timber-line, the riders found the scrub bushes grew scraggier and shorter, and finally the top of the peak was left as bare and craggy as any volcanic formation.

From Girl Scouts in the Rockies by Lillian Elizabeth Roy

“It’s the scraggiest part of the whole forest,—only fit for owls to live in!”

From The Joyous Story of Toto by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

She wore a blaze of jewels and a low gown out of which rose the scraggiest neck and shoulders I have ever looked on.

From Eleven Possible Cases by Franklin Fyles

On our way we paused to admire the church bell—an ancient dinner-bell, which hung by a piece of string from the longest and scraggiest arm of a very old and leafless tree.

From The Last Voyage to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' by R. T. (Robert Taylor) Pritchett

The old sailor, ignorant of Arabic feminine names, thought it a “misnomer”, for of all his she-persecutors she was the leanest and scraggiest.

From The Boy Slaves by Mayne Reid

“It was the rummiest vehicle you ever saw,” he heard Jones say; “a cart, I assure you—nothing more or less, and drawn by the very scraggiest scarecrow of a blind horse.”

From St. Winifred's, or The World of School by H. C. (Harold C.) Earnshaw

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