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scab - What does it mean?

Definition of 'scab'

English

Noun

(en-noun)
  • An incrustation over a sore, wound, vesicle, or pustule, formed during healing.
  • (colloquial|or|obsolete) The scabies.
  • The mange, especially when it appears on sheep.
  • * 1882 , James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England , Volume 4, p. 306,
    • Scab was the terror of the sheep farmer, and the peril of his calling.
  • 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).
  • Common scab, a relatively harmless variety of scab (potato disease) caused by .
  • (botany) Any one of various more or less destructive fungal diseases that attack cultivated plants, forming dark-colored crustlike spots.
  • (founding) A slight irregular protuberance which defaces the surface of a casting, caused by the breaking away of a part of the mold.
  • A mean, dirty, paltry fellow.
    • (Shakespeare)
  • (slang) A worker who acts against trade union policies, especially a strikebreaker.

    • Synonyms

    * (strikebreaker) blackleg, knobstick, scalie

    Related terms

    * scabies * scabrous

    Verb

  • To become covered by a scab or scabs.
  • To form into scabs and be shed, as damaged or diseased skin.
  • * 1734 , Royal Society of London, The Philosophical Transactions (1719 - 1733) Abridged , Volume 7, page 631,
    • Tho?e Pu?tules aro?e, maturated, and ?cabbed off, intirely like the true Pox.
  • * 2009 , Linda Wisdom, Wicked By Any Other Name , page 233,
    • Trev walked over and leaned down, dropping a tender kiss on her forehead where the skin was raw and scabbing from the cut.
  • * 2009 , Nancy Lord, Rock, Water, Wild: An Alaskan Life , page 121,
    • The bark that wasn?t already scabbed off was peppered with beetle holes.
  • To remove part of a surface (from).
  • * 1891 , Canadian Senate, Select Committee on Railways, Telegraphs and Harbours: Proceedings and Evidence , page 265,
    • The beds shall be scabbed' off to give a solid bearing, no pinning shall be admitted between the backing and the face stones and there shall be a good square joint not exceeding one inch in width, and the face stone shall be ' scabbed off to allow this.
  • To act as a strikebreaker.
  • (transitive|UK|Australia|NZ|informal) To beg (for), to cadge or bum.
    • I scabbed some money off a friend.
  • * 2004 , Niven Govinden, We are the New Romantics , Bloomsbury Publishing, UK, page 143,
    • Finding a spot in a covered seating area that was more bus shelter than tourist-friendly, I unravelled a mother of a joint I?d scabbed off the garçon.
  • * 2006 , Linda Jaivin, The Infernal Optimist , 2010, HarperCollins Australia, unnumbered page,
    • I?d already used up me mobile credit. I was using a normal phone card, what I got from Hamid, what got it from a church lady what helped the refugees. I didn?t like scabbing from the asylums, but they did get a lotta phone cards.
  • * 2010 , Fiona Wood, Six Impossible Things , page 113,
    • I?ve told Fred we can see a movie this weekend, but that just seems like a money-wasting activity. And I can?t keep scabbing off my best friend.

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    Similar to 'scab'

    sub, squab, sib, swab, squib, sob, sahib, sab, swob, sweb, shab, saheb