scrubby

American  

[skruhb-ee] / ˈskrʌb i /

adjective

scrubbier, scrubbiest

1. low or stunted, as trees.

2. consisting of or covered with scrub, stunted trees, etc.

3. undersized or inferior, as animals.

4. wretched; shabby.

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scrubby British  

/ ˈskrʌbɪ /

adjective

1. covered with or consisting of scrub

2. (of trees or vegetation) stunted in growth

3. informal messy

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Other Word Forms

• scrubbiness
  noun
• scrubbily
  adverb

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Etymology

Origin of scrubby

First recorded in 1745–55; scrub ² + -y ¹

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

scrubby scrubbier scrubbiest

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

Known as "the jungle", the camp is a scrubby patch of land beside a road and a railway line.

From BBC ● May 18, 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

So now we were walking in the grove behind the college, down by the scrubby little pine forest at the base of the mountains, with one of them on either side of me.

From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

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

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

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

And go and hire the smallest, scrubbiest, toughest pair of horses you can find.”

From The Romance of the Reaper by Herbert Newton Casson

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