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scab

noun
/skæb/

Etymology

From Middle English scabb, scabbe (also as shabbe, schabbe > English shab), from Old English sċeabb and Old Norse skabb, both from Proto-Germanic *skabbaz (“scab, scabies”), from Proto-Indo-European *skabʰ- (“to cut, split, carve, shape”). Doublet of shab. Cognate with German Schabe (“scabies”), Danish skab (“scab, scabies”), Swedish skabb (“scab, scabies”), Latin scabies (“scab, itch, mange”). Related also to Old English scafan (“to scrape, shave”), Latin scabere (“to scratch”), English shabby.

  1. derived from *skabʰ-✻ — “to cut, split, carve, shape”
  2. inherited from *skabbaz✻ — “scab, scabies”
  3. derived from skabb
  4. inherited from sċeabb
  5. inherited from scabb

Definitions

  1. An incrustation over a sore, wound, vesicle, or pustule, formed during healing.

  2. The scabies.

  3. The mange, especially when it appears on sheep.

    • Scab was the terror of the sheep farmer, and the peril of his calling.
  4. ›+ 11 more definitions

    1. Any of several different diseases of potatoes producing pits and other damage on their…

      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).

    2. Common scab, a relatively harmless variety of scab (potato disease) caused by…

      Common scab, a relatively harmless variety of scab (potato disease) caused by Streptomyces scabies.

    3. Any one of various more or less destructive fungal diseases that attack cultivated…

      Any one of various more or less destructive fungal diseases that attack cultivated plants, forming dark-colored crustlike spots.

    4. A slight irregular protuberance which defaces the surface of a casting, caused by the…

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

    5. A mean, dirty, paltry fellow.

      • Out, scab!
      • I would make thee the / loathsomest scab in Greece.

    6. A worker who acts against trade union policies

      A worker who acts against trade union policies; any picket crosser (strikebreaker), and especially one with devotion to union busting.

      • When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out.

    7. To become covered by a scab or scabs.

    8. 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, Thoſe Puſtules aroſe, maturated, and ſcabbed off, intirely like the true Pox.
      • Trev walked over and leaned down, dropping a tender kiss on her forehead where the skin was raw and scabbing from the cut.
      • The bark that wasn′t already scabbed off was peppered with beetle holes.

    9. To remove part of a surface (from).

    10. To act as a strikebreaker.

      • Don't scab for the bosses / Don't listen to their lies / Us poor folks haven't got a chance / Unless we organize.
      • Nobody desires to scab, to give most for least. The ambition of every individual is quite the opposite, to give least for most; and, as a result, living in a tooth-and-nail society, battle royal is waged by the ambitious individuals.

    11. 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.

The neighborhood

Derived

antiscab, apple scab, crown scab, powdery scab, scabbery, scabbish, scabby, scab duty, scabland, scabless, scablike, scab union, scabwort

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for scab. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA