The neighborhood is full of dilapidated houses with scruffy backyards.
dressed in scruffy old clothes to clean out the garage
Recent Examples on the WebHost Reba McEntire was sure to be both corny and unflappable, Lainey Wilson was a lock to win Entertainer of the Year, and country interloper Post Malone, scruffy and face-tattooed, was going to charm the pants off everyone.—Joseph Hudak, Rolling Stone, 17 May 2024 It was filmed in Seattle in 1991, as the city’s scruffy rock bands drifted, improbably, toward global superfame.—Sam Anderson, New York Times, 16 Apr. 2024 This scruffy but finely nuanced drama follows an unusual group of characters: four Sasquatches—mythical beings better known singly, as Bigfoot—making their way through the forests of the Pacific Northwest in the course of a year.—Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 5 Apr. 2024 Marchant, a scruffy professor at BU, was a rock star of rock study.—David Kushner, WIRED, 4 Apr. 2024 See all Example Sentences for scruffy
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'scruffy.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
scruff, metathetic variant of scurf (also with senses "something worthless or contemptible, contemptible person") + -y entry 1
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