Scabrous

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Dr. Goodword
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Scabrous

Postby Dr. Goodword » Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:01 am

• scabrous •

Pronunciation: skæ-brês • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Scaly, rough, rugged, encrusted, as 'scabrous bark'. 2. Risque, salacious, indecent, shockingly rude, as in 'a scabrous remark'. 3. (Style) Harsh, unpolished, rough (writing) as in 'a scabrous draft'.

Notes: Today's adjective has been separated from its origin, scab, however it might be used to refer to something or someone covered with scabs. The noun is scabrousness and the adverb, scabrously.

In Play: A house with peeling paint is the perfect example of today's Good Word: "Owen Cash lived in a house so long ignored, its exterior had become scabrous." However, the second meaning of this word is used far more frequently today than its first: "When Randy Farmer asked for a kiss from Lucy Lastik, she responded in such scabrous language that everyone was stunned."

Word History: The source of today's Good Word is Latin scabrosus "rough" from scaber "rough, scaly", which came from scabere "to scratch, scrape, shave". We borrowed scrabrous from Latin, but the Proto-Indo-European word that provided scabere in Latin (something like skab- "to scrape, scratch"), came though our Old Germanic ancestors as shape, scab, and shave in English. (English is also an Indo-European language.) The other meanings of today's Good Word, "vulgar, nasty, repulsive" are recent developments, since the 1880s. (Thanks to Lew Jury, a smooth subscriber who sent us this excellent if rough Good Word.)
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misterdoe
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Re: Scabrous

Postby misterdoe » Mon Jul 20, 2015 10:27 am

A Good Word to describe the house in a photo I circulated to some of my coworkers. It's near my workplace, with a sign saying 21st Century Awning Concepts, but with an exterior that doesn't look like it's seen any TLC since the 19th. I sent the photo with the caption, "Would you entrust any money or decor decisions to a business whose location looked like this?" :)

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Slava
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Re: Scabrous

Postby Slava » Tue Jan 12, 2016 3:35 pm

What do you think, could a diamond in the rough be renamed a scabrous diamond?
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Re: Scabrous

Postby Philip Hudson » Tue Jan 12, 2016 6:49 pm

Scabrous brought the word gnarly to my mind. It is similar in meaning to scabrous as in definition 1.
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