SHABBY (shabbier, shabbiest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: shabbier    , shabbiest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does shabby mean? 

• SHABBY (adjective)
  The adjective SHABBY has 2 senses:

1. showing signs of wear and tear

2. mean and unworthy and despicable

  Familiarity information: SHABBY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SHABBY (adjective)

Comparative: shabbier   
Superlative: shabbiest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Showing signs of wear and tear

Synonyms:

moth-eaten; ratty; shabby; tatty

Context example:

an old house with dirty windows and tatty curtains

Similar:

worn (affected by wear; damaged by long use)

Derivation:

shabbiness (a lack of elegance as a consequence of wearing threadbare or dirty clothing)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Mean and unworthy and despicable

Context example:

shabby treatment

Similar:

dishonorable; dishonourable (lacking honor or integrity; deserving dishonor)

Derivation:

shabbiness (an unjust act)

 Context examples 

I was not afraid of the shabby coat, and had no yearnings after gallant greys.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This is a cursed shabby trick!

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Then he took the prince’s coat, and gave him the shabby one, and went away through the wood.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Yet, in spite of his shabby and even absurd appearance, his voice had a sharp crackle, and his manner a quick intensity which commanded attention.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

On one side was an old, brown house, looking rather bare and shabby, robbed of the vines that in summer covered its walls and the flowers, which then surrounded it.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Shabby fellows, both of them!

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The driver looked twice at such a shabby fare, but I jumped in before he could object. ‘The Church of St. Monica,’ said I, ‘and half a sovereign if you reach it in twenty minutes.’

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very inferior to her own.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

It often grieved her to the heart to think of the contrast between them; to think that where nature had made so little difference, circumstances should have made so much, and that her mother, as handsome as Lady Bertram, and some years her junior, should have an appearance so much more worn and faded, so comfortless, so slatternly, so shabby.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the portrait-cover.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)