shabby
- impaired by wear, use, etc.; worn: shabby clothes.
- showing conspicuous signs of wear or neglect: The rooms on the upper floors of the mansion had a rather shabby appearance, as if they had not been much in use of late.
- wearing worn clothes or having a slovenly or unkempt appearance: a shabby person.
- run-down, seedy, or dilapidated: a shabby hotel.
- meanly ungenerous or unfair; contemptible, as persons, actions, etc.: shabby behavior.
- inferior; not up to par in quality, performance, etc.: a shabby rendition of the sonata.
Origin of shabby
Examples from the Web for shabbily
Historical Examples
And there was big, handsome, Eddie Arledge, whose father had treated him shabbily.
The SpendersHarry Leon Wilson
You have asked the most shabbily dressed person in Elberthal to be your companion.
The First ViolinJessie Fothergill
He was shabbily dressed, and she did not even know he was the son of a dentist.
Where Angels Fear to TreadE. M. Forster
To treat him shabbily in any way denotes no real appreciation of his presence.
The Etiquette of To-dayEdith B. Ordway
Von Wedel, though dressed so shabbily, was the chief spokesman.
The Minister of EvilWilliam Le Queux
shabby
- threadbare or dilapidated in appearance
- wearing worn and dirty clothes; seedy
- mean, despicable, or unworthyshabby treatment
- dirty or squalid
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for shabbily
shabby
adj.
1660s, of persons, "poorly dressed," with -y (2) + shab "a low fellow" (1630s), literally "scab" (now only dialectal in the literal sense, in reference to a disease of sheep), from Old English sceabb (the native form of the Scandinavian word that yielded Modern English scab; also see sh-). Cf. Middle Dutch schabbich, German schäbig "shabby."
Of clothes, furniture, etc., "of mean appearance, no longer new or fresh" from 1680s; meaning "inferior in quality" is from 1805. Figurative sense "contemptibly mean" is from 1670s. Related: Shabbily; shabbiness. Shabby-genteel "run-down but trying to keep up appearances, retaining in present shabbiness traces of former gentility," first recorded 1754. Related: Shabaroon "disreputable person," c.1700.