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scab
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
scab
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Cindy Crawford has said her job is hard because frequent swimsuit changing leads to callouses and scabs.
▪ Cuts and grazes on the skin should be covered with a waterproof dressing until a scab forms.
▪ He is a scab on the play, a scab speaking prose.
▪ There were scabs on his elbow and hand, and his nose appeared a little off-center.
▪ This country is set up for scabs.
▪ Until the healing process is well advanced, the body forms a scab over the wound to protect it.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Scab

Scab \Scab\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Scabbed; p. pr. & vb. n. Scabbing.]

  1. To become covered with a scab; as, the wound scabbed over.

  2. to take the place of a striking worker.

Scab

Scab \Scab\ (sk[a^]b), n. [OE. scab, scabbe, shabbe; cf. AS. sc[ae]b, sceabb, scebb, Dan. & Sw. skab, and also L. scabies, fr. scabere to scratch, akin to E. shave. See Shave, and cf. Shab, Shabby.]

  1. An incrustation over a sore, wound, vesicle, or pustule, formed by the drying up of the discharge from the diseased part.

  2. The itch in man; also, the scurvy. [Colloq. or Obs.]

  3. The mange, esp. when it appears on sheep.
    --Chaucer.

  4. A disease of potatoes producing pits in their surface, caused by a minute fungus ( Tiburcinia Scabies).

  5. (Founding) A slight irregular protuberance which defaces the surface of a casting, caused by the breaking away of a part of the mold.

  6. A mean, dirty, paltry fellow. [Low]
    --Shak.

  7. A nickname for a workman who engages for lower wages than are fixed by the trades unions; also, for one who takes the place of a workman on a strike. [Cant]

  8. (Bot.) Any one of various more or less destructive fungus diseases attacking cultivated plants, and usually forming dark-colored crustlike spots.

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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
scab

mid-13c., "skin disease," developed from Old English sceabb "scab, itch" (related to scafan "to shave, scrape, scratch") and from Old Norse skabb "scab, itch," both from Proto-Germanic *skab- "scratch, shave," from PIE *(s)kep- "to cut, scrape, hack" (see scabies). Sense reinforced by cognate Latin scabies "scab, itch, mange" (from scabere "to scratch").\n

\nMeaning "crust which forms over a wound or sore" is first attested c.1400. Meaning "strikebreaker" first recorded 1806, from earlier sense of "person who refuses to join a trade union" (1777), probably from meaning "despicable person" (1580s), possibly borrowed in this sense from Middle Dutch.

Wiktionary
scab

n. 1 An incrustation over a sore, wound, vesicle, or pustule, formed during healing. 2 (context colloquial or obsolete English) The scabies. 3 The mange, especially when it appears on sheep. 4 Any of several different diseases of potatoes producing pits and other damage on their surface, caused by streptomyces bacteria (but formerly believed to be caused by a fungus). 5 common scab, a relatively harmless variety of '''scab''' (potato disease) caused by (taxlink Streptomyces scabies species noshow=1). 6 (context botany English) Any one of various more or less destructive fungus diseases that attack cultivated plants, forming dark-colored crustlike spots. 7 (context founding English) A slight irregular protuberance which defaces the surface of a casting, caused by the breaking away of a part of the mold. 8 A mean, dirty, paltry fellow. 9 (context slang English) A worker who acts against trade union policies, especially a strikebreaker. vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To become covered by a scab or scabs. 2 (context intransitive English) To form into scabs and be shed, as damaged or diseased skin. 3 (context transitive English) To remove part of a surface (from). 4 (context intransitive English) To act as a strikebreaker. 5 (context transitive UK Australia NZ informal English) To beg (for), to cadge or bum.

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WordNet
scab

  1. n. someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike [syn: strikebreaker, blackleg, rat]

  2. the crustlike surface of a healing skin lesion

scab

  1. v. form a scab; "the wounds will eventually scab"

  2. take the place of work of someone on strike [syn: rat, blackleg]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Scab

Scab may refer to:

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Usage examples of "scab".

As for Astel, wherever she was, I hoped that she would have a long and lingering death, and that said death would involve multiple open sores and scabs, preferably in the vicinity of her private regions.

She would smear the liquid froth into careful position, slopping astonishing tones in suggestive patches and scabs, where it coagulated quickly into shape.

Any scab worth his yeast knew that those insect vectors were stuffed to bursting with swift and ghastly illnesses, pneumonic plague and necrotizing fasciitis among the friendlier ones.

Ninar Foan was a tiny scab of buildings on its spur, and even the spur was dwarfed now by the jagged hills around.

Cele that he got old Nigger Tashs scab for her and he gessed she wood begin to turn prety dark culored before a week or 2.

In resentful unfolding gusts the cloud pushes its innards out and Judah sees movement inside, not wind-driven or random, and arms, supplicant, emerge from the obscurity and a man comes out, greyed by wisps that cling to him and become silicon chitin, crusting him as he falls, and behind is another belching of mist and another figure pushes through smokestone visibly harder now, wading through dough, scabbed with it, labouring under matter.

Other members of the family and retainers consulted Lully about their ailments, and in most cases he thoroughly banished or at least alleviated assorted agues, colicks, gripes, wind, surfeits, scabs, and headaches.

The vinegar smell was stronger in the York Farm cider house, and behind the press were dried clots of pomace that clung to the wall like apple scab.

He limped, stiff, bruised, raddled with scabs that itched and cracked, clumsy with one eye, and muzzy from a bandage swaddling his skull.

Jerome and Eric followed the path the Rummery had taken across the scab rock meadowland to the county road.

Malvern popped the datastorage and slipped the honey-colored hockey puck into his capacious scabbing vest.

His scalp, forehead, and nose were feeling better, also, some of the scabbing having come away as he had bathed.

Some dots, some scabs had to be made on their faces, so they would appear to have scabies, enough to make them unattractive.

After her mother died and was buried, her father forgot the mother and forgot the child and married the woman who used to rake the ashes, and that was why the child lived in the unraked ashes, and there was nobody to brush her hair, so it stuck out like a mat, nor to wipe the dirt off her scabbed face, and she had no heart to do it for herself, but she raked the ashes and slept beside the little cat and got the burned bits from the bottom of the pot to eat, scraping them out, squatting on the floor, by herself in front of the fire, not as if she were human, because she was still mourning.

By that evening his entire right leg was throbbing like a rotten tooth, and under the skin he could see the telltale red lines of blood poisoning radiating out from the wound, which had only begun to scab over.