different between slabby vs shabby

English

Etymology 1

slab (“mud, sludge”) +? -y

Adjective

slabby (comparative slabbier, superlative slabbiest)

1. Of a liquid: thick; viscous.
   • 1696, John Selden, Table-Talk, London: Jacob Tonson, “Pope,” p. 127,^[1]

     The Pope in sending Relicks to Princes, does as Wenches do by their Wassels at New-years-tide, they present you with a Cup, and you must drink of a slabby stuff; but the meaning is, you must give them Moneys, ten times more than it is worth.

2. Of a surface: sloppy, slimy.
   • 1846, Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy, London: for the author, “Genoa and its Neighbourhood,” p. 48,^[2]

     I went down into the garden, intended to be prim and quaint, with avenues, and terraces, and orange-trees, and statues, and water in stone basins; and everything was green, gaunt, weedy, straggling, under grown or over grown, mildewy, damp, redolent of all sorts of slabby, clammy, creeping, and uncomfortable life.

3. (of weather) Rainy, wet.
   • 1581, John Studley (translator), Hercules Oetaeus, Act I, in Seneca his Tenne Tragedies, Translated into Englysh, London: Thomas Marsh,^[3]

     To Virgo, Leo turnes the time, and in a reaking sweate.

     He buskling vp his burning Mane, doth dry the dropping south.

     And swallowes vp the slabby cloudes in fyry foming mouth.

   • 1676, John Evelyn, A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, London: John Martyn, p. 58,^[4]

     […] I am only to caution our labourer as to the present work, that he do not stir the ground in over-wet and slabby weather […]

Derived terms

• slabbiness

Etymology 2

slab (“solid object that is large and flat”) +? -y

Adjective

slabby (comparative slabbier, superlative slabbiest)

1. Composed of slabs; resembling a slab or slabs; inelegant, cumbersome, clunky.
   • 1905, Robert W. Chambers, Iole, New York: D. Appleton, p. 3,^[5]

     Then he set up another shop an’ hired some of us ’round here to go an’ make them big, slabby art-chairs.

   • 1962, Richard McKenna, The Sand Pebbles, New York: Harper & Row, Chapter ,^[6]

     He was big and pink and slabby with muscle, but not very hairy, for a white man.

   • 2010, Euan Ferguson, “Hay’s unmissable (if you can get there...),” The Guardian, 30 May, 2010,^[7]

     The papers were full yesterday morning, you see, of the iPad. […] a million fidget-fingered twits were salivating for the chance to show off their slabby electro-tablets […]

English

Etymology

From shab (“scab”) +? -y, or directly from an alteration of scabby. Cognate with Scots shabby (“in poor health, ill”), Dutch schabbig (“poor, needy, shabby”), Middle Low German schabbich (“miserable”), German schäbig (“shabby”), Swedish skabbig (“scabby”), Swedish sjabbig (“shabby, mangy, scruffy”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??æb.i/
• Rhymes: -æbi

Adjective

shabby (comparative shabbier, superlative shabbiest)

1. Torn or worn; unkempt.

2. Clothed with ragged, much worn, or soiled garments.

3. Mean; paltry; despicable.

Derived terms

• shabby-genteel
• shabby chic

Translations