shabby-genteel

[ shab-ee-jen-teel ]

/ ˈʃæb i dʒɛnˈtil /

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adjective

trying to maintain dignity and self-respect despite shabbiness.

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Origin of shabby-genteel

First recorded in 1745–55

OTHER WORDS FROM shabby-genteel

shab·by-gen·til·i·ty

[shab-ee-jen-til-i-tee], /ˈʃæb i dʒɛnˈtɪl ɪ ti/, noun

Words nearby shabby-genteel

shabash, Shabbas, Shabbas goy, Shabbat, shabby, shabby-genteel, Shabelle, Shabuoth, shabu-shabu, Shacharis, Shacharith

How to use shabby-genteel in a sentence

We met on the third floor of a shabby building in Asadabad in an impossibly spare room that we dragged cushions into.
Heart of Darkness: Into Afghanistan’s Taliban Valley|Matt Trevithick, Daniel Seckman|November 15, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Graterford is a forbidding, shabby, woebegone facility built in 1929.
Here’s a Reform Even the Koch Brothers and George Soros Can Agree On|Tina Brown|November 10, 2014|DAILY BEAST
These nonchalant brutalities seem at first at odds with the genteel decorum that mostly cloaks late-19th century culture.
The Magazine That Made—and Unmade—Politicians|Anthony Haden-Guest|November 2, 2014|DAILY BEAST
It was such a lovely, shabby, many deco building town and completely unexploited.
Barbara Hulanicki, Queen of Fast Fashion|Lizzie Crocker|October 15, 2014|DAILY BEAST

Champion Hill, where the book is set, is two quiet roads of genteel-looking houses, first settled in the 18th century.
Sarah Waters: Queen of the Tortured Lesbian Romance|Tim Teeman|September 30, 2014|DAILY BEAST
"I bought them boots to wear only when I go into genteel society," said one of the codfish tribe, to a wag, the other day.
The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun;|Various
The English have too much pride to be tricky or shabby, even in the essentially corrupting relation of buyer and seller.
Glances at Europe|Horace Greeley
The farmer stooped down, and raised the shabby bonnet from the face of the woman to examine her more carefully.
The World Before Them|Susanna Moodie
He turned into an alley, down which, nautically speaking, he rolled into a shabby little court.
The Garret and the Garden|R.M. Ballantyne
She still wore the shabby lace and the artificial bunch of violets on the side of her head.
The Awakening and Selected Short Stories|Kate Chopin

British Dictionary definitions for shabby-genteel

shabby-genteel

adjective

preserving or aspiring to the forms and manners of gentility despite appearing shabby

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