shoddy
English
Etymology
- Unknown, but possibly from shoad (“loose stone and rubble; fragments”), equivalent to shoad + -y; or possibly from the Arabic word for reuse. Shoad was of inferior quality for building.
- The modern adjectival sense was apparently derived from inexpensive shoddy (“fabric from wool-processing byproduct”), which was not really suitable for (but was sometimes still used for) things such as military uniforms at the beginning of the US Civil War.
Pronunciation
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 331: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "UK" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ʃɒdi/
- Rhymes: -ɒdi
Adjective
shoddy (comparative shoddier, superlative shoddiest)
- Of poor quality or construction
- Do not settle for shoddy knives if you are serious about cooking.
- (dated) pretentious, sham, counterfeit
- (dated) ambitious by reason of newly-acquired wealth; nouveau riche
Translations
of poor quality
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Noun
shoddy (countable and uncountable, plural shoddies)
- A low-grade cloth made from by-products of wool processing, or from recycled wool.
- 1849, “A Statistical Outline of the Present Condition & Progress of the Anglo-Saxon Race”, in The Anglo-Saxon, page 123:
- Formerly, shoddy cloth was “used only for padding, and such like purposes, but now blankets, flushings, druggets, carpets, and table covers, cloth for pilot and Petersham great” coats, &c., are either wholly or partly made of shoddy, which, in fact, is “occasionally worn by everybody. The beautiful woollen table covers are made wholly of shoddy, being printed by aqua-fortis from designs drawn in London and Manchester, and cut on holly and other blocks, on the spot.”
- 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford 2003, p. 324:
- To fill contracts for hundreds of thousands of uniforms, textile manufacturers compressed the fibers of recycled woolen goods into a material called “shoddy”.
- (dated) Worthless goods.
- (colloquial, dated) Vulgar pretence or sham.
Derived terms
Translations
low-grade cloth made from used wool or wool byproducts
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See also
References
Categories:
- English terms with unknown etymologies
- English terms suffixed with -y
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɒdi
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English dated terms
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English colloquialisms
- en:Fabrics