FromMiddle Englishscabby,scabbie, equivalent toscab +-y.Doublet ofshabby.
scabby (comparativescabbier,superlativescabbiest)
- Affected withscabs; full of scabs.
- Diseased with the scab (mange):mangy.
- (printing) Having a blotched, uneven appearance.
- Injured by the attachment ofbarnacles to thecarapace of ashell.
- Working against union policies, working tobust unions; in particular, being ascab (worker who crosses a union picket line).
1990, Bruce Nelson,Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s, University of Illinois Press,→ISBN, page166:The police, the governor, and the "scabby" Hearst Examiner "received a tremendous razzing," according to the Waterfront Worker, while all along the line of march "the workers on the sidelines cheered […]"
2016 August 31, David M. Caulfield,Ever a Fighter: The Adventures of Katherine Wilkinson, Xlibris Corporation,→ISBN:[They're a]scabby right-to-work company and they don't care how much the sharp edges on that dust screw up a guy's lungs.
2021 July 28, Michael F. McCarthy Colonel USAF (Ret),Memories of a Jane Street Boy: Family Influences and The Early Years, Dorrance Publishing,→ISBN, page295:Hoochie's dad said, “All eight drivers are former'scabby' employees who couldn't get hired by any reputable union trucking companies.”
- (Ireland, slang)Stingy.
The chipper was a bitscabby on the vinegar today.
- William Dwight Whitney,Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “scabby”, inThe Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.:The Century Co.,→OCLC.
- “scabby”, inWebster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.:G. & C. Merriam,1913,→OCLC.
