shoddy
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]- 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
[edit]- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈʃɒd.i/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- (US, Canada) IPA(key): /ˈʃɑ.di/, [ˈʃɑ.ɾi]
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈʃɔd.i/, [ˈʃɔɾ.i]
- Homophones: shawty (cot–caught merger, flapping); shotty (cot–caught merger, flapping)
- Rhymes: -ɒdi
Adjective
[edit]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.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]of poor quality
|
Noun
[edit]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, published 2003, page 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
[edit]Translations
[edit]See also
[edit]References
[edit]Categories:
- English terms with unknown etymologies
- English terms suffixed with -y
- English 2-syllable words
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- Rhymes:English/ɒdi
- Rhymes:English/ɒdi/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English dated terms
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
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- en:Fabrics