Crossword clues for scabrous
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Scabrous \Sca"brous\, a. [L. scabrosus, fr. scaber rough: cf. F. scabreux.]
Rough to the touch, like a file; having small raised dots, scales, or points; scabby; scurfy; scaly.
--Arbuthnot.-
Fig.: Harsh; unmusical. [R.]
His verse is scabrous and hobbling.
--Dryden.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1570s, "harsh, unmusical" (implied in scabrously), from Late Latin scabrosus "rough," from Latin scaber "rough, scaly," related to scabere "to scratch, scrape" (see scabies). Sense in English evolved to "vulgar" (1881), "squalid" (1939), and "nasty, repulsive" (c.1951). Classical literal sense of "rough, rugged" attested in English from 1650s. Related: Scabrously; scabrousness.
Wiktionary
a. 1 covered with scales or scab, or otherwise extremely rough 2 having indecent sexual content or connotation, rough 3 (context figurative English) harsh; unmusical
WordNet
Usage examples of "scabrous".
Two scabrous dogs came yapping out of the wreck and ran after her car, then quickly gave it up.
His glaring eyes bulged dangerously The other man looked positively anorexic, with thin, pale arms showing below an olive drab T-shirt that flapped over ancient Army fatigue trousers and scabrous sandals.
Kern tried to move his arms, but the scabrous bones only tightened cruelly.
She was as scarred and scabrous as the guards outside, but the mad tumble of her eyes told of her profession: dementia summoner.
Chevy, the leader and two of his older friends crawling into the scabrous green Ford with the oversized tires.
A swarthy soul with a cheerful expression on her broad flat face, she sat at her ease under a ragged awning of scabrous animal hide.
With its bent, gap-toothed gears and its scabrous corrosions it served better as an Emblem, than as a Keeper, of Time.
Around the edges were a few scabrous tables where it looked like card-games might be prosecuted during summer.
And indeed, the scabrous stone idol was now imbued with a ghastly semblance of life.
The scabrous bronze daevas that dwelt in the foyer glared from their protuberant eyes.
From the dark rustled something twice as tall as the dwarves, mottled green and scabrous black in the lamplight.
Water gleamed in pools and sluggish rivulets across the scabrous wasteland.
There were the rough slabs of old meteor repairs, loose strands of the superfilament cables that stitched the ship together, great scabrous patches where the varnish had flaked away.
Hugh told them the scabrous story about the loner so fabu5 lously endowed that he was known as the Gatha Entire.
Lagan and Airgialla, my armies were sitting siege before Corcaigh, the capital of Muma, and also had marched into Connachta, defeated everything that stood before them, and driven that plaguey king of theirs and his scabrous sons into their burrow and were set to smoke them out.