Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Having or covered with scales or small projections and rough to the touch. See Synonyms at rough.
- adj. Difficult to handle; knotty: a scabrous situation.
- adj. Dealing with scandalous or salacious material: a scabrous novel.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Rough; rugged; having sharp points or little asperities. Specifically, in zoology and botany, rough or roughened as if scabby, as a surface; covered with little points or asperities: as, shagreen is the scabrous skin of a shark; especially, rough to the touch from hardly visible granules or minute angular elevations with which a surface, as of an insect or a plant, is covered. Also
scabrate . - Harsh; unmusical.
Wiktionary
- adj. covered with scales or scabs, or otherwise extremely rough
- adj. having indecent sexual content or connotation, rough
- adj. figuratively harsh; unmusical
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Rough to the touch, like a file; having small raised dots, scales, or points; scabby; scurfy; scaly.
- adj. rare Fig.: Harsh; unmusical.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. rough to the touch; covered with scales or scurf
- adj. dealing with salacious or indecent material
Etymologies
- Latin scabrosus. (Wiktionary)
- Late Latin scabrōsus, from scaber, scabr-, scurfy. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Political and journalistic combatants who knew each other socially usually restrained themselves from the kind of scabrous public attack Americans now find so objectionable.”
“The "works on paper" are fascinating: weird and offhand enough to make you doubt they're from Bacon's hand, but also just the kind of scabrous visual notes an artist like Bacon -- who didn't draw much -- would have warmed up to paint with.”
“On a side note, never have I seen so many reviews spontaneously choose to use the word "scabrous" at once. link”
“The base color of these dull boxes was an equally dull grey; where in the past people had tried to apply paint, either to cover the entire building or as crude advertisements, the paint remained only in patches, as if the buildings had some kind of scabrous disease.”
“Despite the subject and the title, there is nothing in the least "scabrous" in it.”
A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century
“But here, "scabrous" as the subject might be, the treatment is scrupulously”
A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800
“a tenth part of the popularity of his more "scabrous" things, though itself is very far from prudish, and though it makes no appearance in some lists and collections of his work.”
A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century
“scabrous" part of the matter by the author of Diderot's other books.”
A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800
“Its scabrous skin swelled outward, and its eerie face grew larger and stranger, and its blood-spitting eyes became crystal-shooting eyes.”
“The hyena wailed, scabrous claws skittering on broken flagstones.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘scabrous’.
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A Galimafrée of Plant Anatomy & Morph...
A hodgepodge, jumble, jambalaya, *gallimaufry, circus and tent revival of plant anatomy and morphology terms and phrases - its a big tent, and no tickets are required.
*array, collecti...naked bud, leaf blade, brochidodromous, serrate, cork cambium, rhizomatous, flower stalk, deciduous sepal, petal, whorl, nectar gland, stamen and 1348 more...
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Genes
Interesting gene names. Some of these may have changed recently (to something less offensive/funny).
http://www.genenames.org/
tinman, agnostic, dreadlocks, Van Gogh, fruitless, lava lamp, ariadne, cheap date, ken and barbie, I'm not dead yet, I'm not dead yet 2, manic fringe and 1192 more... -
phrontistery-s
from phrontistery.info
sabaton, sabbatarian, sabbulonarium, sabelline, sabin, sable, sabliere, sabot, sabretache, sabulous, saburration, saccade and 1593 more...
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 355 more...
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Burroughs
Detestable words
purulence, bête noire, exigent, exculpate, desideratum, lucriferous, concomitant, pertinacious, pervicacious, gemütlichkeit, sublimate, sanfroid and 38 more...
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This Boy's Life list 2
treacly, sepulchral, unutterable, malicious, vigilance, Aryan, lackey, plausible, emaciated, cavernous, perspicacity, scabrous and 13 more...
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Words for deinonychus
If you find a word that you want to share with me, this is a good place for it. I will try to look after it.
psychotronics, dolichocephalic, efficacious, scabrous, sympatidig, Ischnoceran, Amblyceran, Rhynchophthiran, Anopluran, Fahrenholz' Rule, Zlotorzycka's Rule, Eichler's Rule and 69 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1852 more...
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GRE Words
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adj. + adv.
vainglorious, lanuginous, altiloquent, ambisextrous, desiderative, flothery, liquescent, logoed, autotelic, tropology, erotogenic, crocky and 108 more...
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ICE
quincunx, adoxography, panjundrum, breloque, surd, scripturient, rousant, favrile, embouchure, aquarelle, griffonage, sussultatory and 234 more...
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Stalking Darkness
Words and phrases from Lynn Flewelling's book, Stalking Darkness.
inquest, halyard, catamount, occlude, founder, more, grouse, grapple, water butt, antepenultimate, palimpsest, hob and 196 more...
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Verba Dilecta
delectable, notate, pauciloquy, paucity, pauciloquent, paucify, interscapilium, uropygium, inferna, nota, equipollent, prepollent and 677 more...
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Need to Know!
elicit, educe, refute, cogency, churlish, martinet, veritable, polyglot, dissemble, histrionics, prevarication, verbiage and 166 more...
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cxfx's list
callipygous, scaphism, ubermorgen, handschuhschneeba..., farctate, autohagiography, autolatry, spindrift, feculent, verisimilitude, brobdingnagian, ineluctable and 205 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for scabrous.
aequoria Scabrous bark. Mar 2, 2009