verb. (old colloquial).—1. TO GET (or MAKE) SHABBY, which = (1) ‘in sorry rigging’ (B. E. and GROSE), out-at-elbows; and (2) mean, base, SEEDY (q.v.). Whence SHABBAROON (SHABROON, SHABRAG, or SHABSTER) = a ragamuffin, ‘a mean spirited fellow’ (B. E. and GROSE). Also SHABBY-GENTEEL = aping gentility, but really shabby; TO SHAB OFF = ‘to sneak or slide away’ (B. E.).
1680. AUBREY, Lives, ‘Letters’ [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 121]. Among new words are Sketch … SHABBY (from scabby).
1688. CLARENDON, Diary, 7 Dec. They were very SHABBY fellows, pitifully mounted, and worse armed.
1691–2. WOOD, Athenæ Oxonienses, II. 743. They mostly had short hair, and went in a SHABBED condition.
1698. FARQUHAR, Love and a Bottle, iv. 3. I would have SHABBED him OFF.
1703. WARD, The London Spy, xv. 365. Some loose SHABROON in Bawdy-Houses Bred.
d. 1704. T. BROWN, Works, ii. 184. My wife, too,… let in an inundation of SHABROONS to gratify her concupiscence.
1729. SWIFT, Hamilton’s Bawn. The dean was so SHABBY, and look’d like a ninny.
1816. SCOTT, The Antiquary, xv. He’s a SHABBY body.
1821. W. T. MONCRIEFF, Tom and Jerry, ii. 6. We haven’t had a better job a long vile nor the SHABBY GENTEEL lay.
1837. R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends, ‘A Lay of St. Nicholas.’
| And how, in the Abbey, no one was so SHABBY | |
| As not to say yearly four masses a head. |
1840. THACKERAY, A Shabby Genteel Story [Title].
1862. THACKERAY, The Adventures of Philip, xxii. Her mother felt more and more ashamed of the SHABBY fly … and the SHABBY cavalier.
1870. W. M. BAKER, The New Timothy, 153. Keeping up a fragmentary conversation with the SHABBY gentleman.
2. (old).—To scratch oneself: like a lousy man or mangy dog.
