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scabrous

UK/ˈskeɪbɹəs/US/ˈskæbɹəs/
adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #15,181 of 15,258Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Scabrous means rough to the touch, or indecent in subject. A scabrous surface, scabrous humour, a scabrous tale.

The physical sense is technical and belongs to botany and geology, where a scabrous leaf is rough with tiny points. The second sense is the one most readers meet: scabrous humour is coarse and faintly disreputable, though never quite obscene.

Definitions of scabrous

  1. 1adjectivescabrousRough to the touch, or indecent in subject.C2

    “The magazine printed scabrous gossip about the private lives of politicians.”

scabrous is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin scaber means rough or scaly, from scabere, to scratch. Scab and scabies are relatives.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *skabʰ- — to scratch

  2. Latin

    scaber — scabrous, rough; scabby, mangy, itchy

  3. English, today

    scabrous

Built from

  • scabō · Latin — to scratch, scrape, abrade

Latin scaber (“scabrous, rough; scabby, mangy, itchy”) (from scabō (“to scratch, scrape, abrade”), from Proto-Indo-European skabʰ- (“to scratch”)) + English -ous; compare French scabreux, Latin scabrōsus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

scabrous in the wild

  • The shells are obliquely trigonal, and strongly radially ribbed, the ribs scabrous to spinose.

    Lima (bivalve)

  • The film, which has a scabrous main theme as an incest between a sister and a porn-obsessed brother, was a box office success.

    The Dark Side of Love

  • Melothria pringlei has a prostrate habit, with scabrous stems that root where they touch the ground.

    Melothria pringlei

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.