shabby
/ˈʃæbi/ adjective B2- Of clothing, a place, etc.: unkempt and worn or otherwise in poor condition due to age or neglect; scruffy. · They lived in a tiny apartment, with some old, shabby furniture.
- Of a person: wearing ragged or very worn, and often dirty, clothing. · The fellow arrived looking rather shabby after journeying so far.
- Of a person, their behaviour, etc.: despicable, mean; also, not generous; stingy, tight-fisted. · shabby treatment
- Poor in quality; also, showing little effort or talent. · His painting is not too shabby.
Comparative shabbier · Superlative shabbiest
From the library
Matthew, however, was spared the ordeal of speaking first, for as soon as she concluded that he was coming to her she stood up, grasping with one thin brown hand the handle of a shabby, old-fashioned carpet-bag; the other she held out to him.
Shortly after the nuptials, the Eagle said, “Fly off and bring me back the ostrich you promised me.” The Kite, soaring aloft into the air, brought back the shabbiest possible mouse, stinking from the length of time it had lain about the fields.
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.
It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere.
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