shabby

Other forms of shabby

comparative or superlative

shabbier

comparative or superlative

shabbiest

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about shabby

What does shabby mean?

shabby means "showing signs of wear and tear". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in shabby?

shabby has 2 syllables: shab-by. The stress falls on "shab". In IPA it is /ˈʃæbi/.

What is another word for shabby?

Close synonyms include moth-eaten, ratty, tatty. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is shabby a common word?

shabby is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.