English Explanatory Dictionary

squammy

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Synonym of squamous (“Covered with, made of, or resembling scales; scaly.”).
  2. trashy; classless; unrefined; crass; uncultured; vulgar; uncouth (lacking refinement)

Pronunciation

/ˈskweɪm.mi/ /ˈskwɑːm.mi/ /ˈskwaːm.mi/

Word forms

squammy squammier squammiest skwammy

Etymology

From squamous + -y, where -ous was elided to extract the root. The reduplicated ⟨m⟩ is akin to runny, brimmy, etc. The Philippine slang sense is a semantic loan from Tagalog iskuwater, itself from Philippine English squatter (“poor vagrant; illegal informal settler”) due to resemblance of the first syllable. Compare Tagalog iskuwami.

Synonyms

squamous squamose squamulose scaled scaly scarious squamate squamated squamiferous squamoid furfuraceous squarrose

Antonyms

esquamulose scaleless
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on S Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary