adj. (common).—Shabby; mean; FISHY (q.v.).—GROSE.
1821. P. EGAN, Life in London, II. iii. If you are too SCALY to tip for it, I’ll shell out, and shame you.
1843. DICKENS, Martin Chuzzlewit, xxviii. What, don’t you remember old mother Todgers’s?… A reg’lar SCALY old shop, warn’t it?
1848. J. R. LOWELL, The Biglow Papers, I. 99. The SCALIEST trick they ever played wuz bringin’ on me hither.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I. 85. They find the ladies their hardest of SCALIEST customers.
1873. J. B. STEPHENS, Miscellaneous Poems [1880], ‘To a Black Gin.’ Methinks that theory is rather ‘SCALY.’
1883. PAYN, Thicker than Water, xlv. Do you mean to say he never gave you nothing?… SCALY varmint!
