scab

Meaning

Noun

1. (countable, uncountable) An incrustation over a sore, wound, vesicle, or pustule, formed during healing.
2. (colloquial, countable, obsolete, uncountable) The scabies.
3. (countable, uncountable) The mange, especially when it appears on sheep.
4. (uncountable) 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).
5. (countable, uncountable) Common scab, a relatively harmless variety of scab (potato disease) caused by Streptomyces scabies.
6. (countable, uncountable) Any one of various more or less destructive fungal diseases that attack cultivated plants, forming dark-colored crustlike spots.
7. (countable, uncountable) A slight irregular protuberance which defaces the surface of a casting, caused by the breaking away of a part of the mold.
8. (countable, uncountable) A mean, dirty, paltry fellow.
9. (countable, derogatory, slang, uncountable) A worker who acts against trade union policies; any picket crosser (strikebreaker), and especially one with devotion to union busting.

Verb

1. (intransitive) To become covered by a scab or scabs.
2. (intransitive) To form into scabs and be shed, as damaged or diseased skin.
3. (transitive) To remove part of a surface (from).
4. (intransitive) To act as a strikebreaker.
5. (Australia, New-Zealand, UK, informal, transitive) To beg (for), to cadge or bum.

Synonyms

blackleg

strikebreaker

crust

itch

sore

fink

scar

rat

🐀

scabies

pustule

eschar

form a scab

slough

abscess

blotch

cicatrix

rind

scale

scurf

skin over

wound

dirt

itching

mange

manginess

mooch

pit

deserter

rascal

rash

deposit

ratter

splice plate

crusts

scald

form a crust

cicatrize

scoundrel

scrounge

have a scab

buttcover plate

casing

cadge

sores

splice

borrow

strikebreaking

tetter

traitor

turncoat

Translations

croûte

Schorf

crosta

costra

gale

Streikbrecher

Kruste

crumiro

crosta

postilla

rogna

crosta

Krätze

scabbia

Pronounced as (IPA)

/skæb/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: scabb

Cognate with English: shab

Inherited from Old English: sċeabb

Cognate with German: Schabe

Cognate with Danish: skab

Cognate with Swedish: skabb

Cognate with Latin: scabies

Cognate with Old English: scafan

Cognate with Latin: scabere

Cognate with English: shabby

In summary

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.