different between scruffy vs scraggly

English

Etymology

scruff +? -y

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sk??.fi/
• Rhymes: -?fi

Adjective

scruffy (comparative scruffier, superlative scruffiest)

1. Untidy in appearance.

   A scruffy little dog came scampering down the road.

2. Scurfy.

Derived terms

• scruffily
• scruffiness

Translations

See also

• scruff

Noun

scruffy (plural scruffies)

1. (informal) An artificial intelligence researcher who believes that intelligence is too complicated (or computationally intractable) to be solved with the sorts of homogeneous system favoured by the "neats".

English

Etymology

As if from a verb *scraggle (in turn from scrag).

Adjective

scraggly (comparative scragglier, superlative scraggliest)

1. Rough, scruffy, or unkempt.
   • 1913, Jack London, John Barleycorn, ch. 31:

     The sunburn of my face, what little of it could be seen through a scraggly growth of beard, had faded to a sickly yellow.

   • 1980 Nov. 24, John Skow, "In Arizona: A Million Dollar Sale of Cowboy Art," Time:

     What he painted was scenes of the Old West, cowboys and Indians, cattle and horses. Pictures scraggly with sagebrush.

2. Jagged or uneven; scraggy.
   • 1916, Annie Fellows Johnston, Georgina of the Rainbows, ch. 24:

     She would be so happy . . . that she wouldn't notice the spelling or the scraggly writing.

   • 2001 Sep. 7, Christopher John Farley, "At the MTV Awards: Redheads and Circuses," Time:

     "I have no idea," the young woman said, checking over the scraggly illegible signature the mystery woman had left her in her autograph book.

Derived terms

• scraggliness

Translations