scruffy
/ˈskɹʌf.i/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.85 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Untidy in appearance; scrubby; shabby.
adj
noun
An artificial intelligence researcher who believes that intelligence is too complicated (or computationally intractable) to be solved with the sorts of homogeneous system favoured by the "neats".
Informal
name
A given name for a dog.
Example Sentences
- "A scruffy little dog came scampering down the road."
- "scruffy clothes"
- "scruffy man"
- "scruffy outfit"
- ""So you wanna be a rock 'n roll star?!" screams the centerspread of a scruffy rag produced by the Boston activist group Rock Against Sexism (R.A.S.) Amid a jumbled collage picturing shaggy-headed, bare-chested, "fuckin' awesome" white guy rockers, photo captions tell us how to succeed at rock 'n roll."
- "And I will think of my father, sun-baked, scruffy and far from home, stalking the wilds of Clapham Common, saved from a dinner of roasted aesculin by people who knew the importance of making someone feel at home."
Etymology
Etymology tree English scruff Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English scruffy From scruff + -y.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈskɹʌf.i/
- British English: /ˈskɹʌf.i/