shabby chic
Americannoun
adjective
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relating to a style of interior design characterized by antique or reproduction furniture with an aged, distressed appearance.
-
fashionably distressed or worn.
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.
In some ways, Gyngell told reporters, the Michelin stamp of approval was a curse: New customers arrived with expectations of luxury, then grumbled when they found shabby chic.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 3, 2025
Clean lines and minimalism, or vintage shabby chic?
From Science Daily • Jan. 15, 2024
The restaurant’s charmingly crumbled masonry and artfully lit exposed rafters give it a romantic Bohemian atmosphere — think a shabby chic Café Juanita, or a grittier Spinasse, with comparable food.
From Seattle Times • Apr. 4, 2023
He shows Bill how to express love physically, but also aesthetically, turning Bill's neighborhood wasteland into a private shabby chic utopia.
From Salon • Jan. 30, 2023
I was wearing my best day clothes, which were my basic London shabby chic white shirt and gray wool slacks and narrow blue tie.
From Eastern Standard Tribe by Doctorow, Cory
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.
