English Explanatory Dictionary

scab

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. An incrustation over a sore, wound, vesicle, or pustule, formed during healing.
  2. The scabies.
  3. The mange, especially when it appears on sheep.
  4. Any of several different diseases of potatoes producing pits and other damage on their surface, caused by streptomyces bacteria (but formerly believed to be caused by a fungus).
  5. Common scab, a relatively harmless variety of scab (potato disease) caused by Streptomyces scabies.
  6. Any one of various more or less destructive fungal diseases that attack cultivated plants, forming dark-colored crustlike spots.
  7. A slight irregular protuberance which defaces the surface of a casting, caused by the breaking away of a part of the mold.
  8. A mean, dirty, paltry fellow.
  9. A worker who acts against trade union policies; any picket crosser (strikebreaker), and especially one with devotion to union busting.
verb
  1. To become covered by a scab or scabs.
  2. To form into scabs and be shed, as damaged or diseased skin.
  3. To remove part of a surface (from).
  4. To act as a strikebreaker.
  5. To beg (for), to cadge or bum.

Pronunciation

/skæb/ en-us-scab.ogg

Word forms

scab scabs scabbing scabbed

Etymology

From Middle English scabb, scabbe (also as shabbe, schabbe > English shab), from Old English sċeabb and Old Norse skabb, both from Proto-Germanic *skabbaz (“scab, scabies”), from Proto-Indo-European *skabʰ- (“to cut, split, carve, shape”). Doublet of shab. Cognate with German Schabe (“scabies”), Danish skab (“scab, scabies”), Swedish skabb (“scab, scabies”), Latin scabies (“scab, itch, mange”). Related also to Old English scafan (“to scrape, shave”), Latin scabere (“to scratch”), English shabby.

Synonyms

antimodel bad guy baddie bastard beggar blackguard bounder cad coistril evildoer fustilarian harlot heavy knave lidderon makeshift miscreant ne'er-do-well niding nithing rapscallion rascal rogue scab scamp scapegrace scoundrel scum scumbag thug undesirable varlet villain blackleg blacklegger knobstick scalie

Related words

scabies scabrous

Derived words

antiscab apple scab crown scab powdery scab scabbery scabbish scabby scab duty scabland scabless scablike scab union scabwort
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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