scrubby
Americanadjective
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low or stunted, as trees.
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consisting of or covered with scrub, stunted trees, etc.
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undersized or inferior, as animals.
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wretched; shabby.
adjective
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covered with or consisting of scrub
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(of trees or vegetation) stunted in growth
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informal messy
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of scrubby
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:
Holding a glass jug, Jorge Velazco Rocha crouches before a contraption of wooden barrels stacked in cascading fashion at his roadside tavern along the scrubby flanks of the Volcán de Colima.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
Kharg Island, targeted in US air strikes on Saturday, is a scrubby stretch of land in the Gulf that handles almost all of Iran's crude exports.
From Barron's ● Mar. 14, 2026
To reach Australia’s pole in 2022, Brown flew to a town in the interior desert, rented a 4X4 and off-roaded across scrubby ranchland.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026
She says she had been stuck in France for two months, after travelling there from Vietnam via Hungary, sleeping in tents in a scrubby forest.
From BBC ● Jan. 5, 2025
A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones, giving him an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and nervous movements.
From "1984" by George Orwell
Trees and brush were scarcer and scrubbier than above, and the general aspect was becoming more and more like the semi-arid parts of the Colorado Desert.
From Down the Columbia by Lewis R. (Lewis Ransome) Freeman
Up, up, he went, and the pines grew shorter and scrubbier.
From The Last of the Chiefs A Story of the Great Sioux War by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
The hills on both sides of the river grew loftier and more rugged as we ran to the south, and the trees became patchier and scrubbier.
From Down the Columbia by Lewis R. (Lewis Ransome) Freeman
Everybody’s got to start somewhere, and in 2002, Harbaugh was at the bottom of the food chain in Oakland — the scrubbiest of scrubs, despite the title of quarterbacks coach.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2025
Every fetishized element — the glorious house, the tiled pool, Marianne’s Dior outfits and the scrubbiest of vistas — looks ravishing, ready for a close-up, too.
From New York Times ● May 3, 2016
As for your solution of "... a wider attempt to breed better-grade cattle with less waste . . ." one would assume that we are still marketing the scrubbiest of the old Longhorns.
From Time Magazine Archive
“I hope I don’t pick the scrubbiest one.”
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
The very scrubbiest sackcloth made, and the grittiest ashes on the heap....I didn't mean to get worked up,' he ended lamely.
From Trent's Last Case by E. C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
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