scruffy

See also: Scruffy

English

A scruffy fox (adjective sense 1 and noun sense 2).

Etymology

Etymology tree

English scruff

Proto-Indo-European *-kos

Proto-Germanic *-gaz

Proto-West Germanic *-g

Old English -iġ

Middle English -y

English -y

English scruffy

From scruff + -y.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈskɹʌf.i/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈskɹaf.i/
• Rhymes: -ʌfi

Adjective

scruffy (comparative scruffier, superlative scruffiest)

2. Untidy in appearance; scrubby; shabby.

   A scruffy little dog came scampering down the road.

   scruffy clothes

   scruffy man

   scruffy outfit

   • 1987 December 13, Elizabeth Pincus, “Rock Against Sexism”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 22, page 16:

     "So you wanna be a rock 'n roll star?!" screams the centerspread of a scruffy rag produced by the Boston activist group Rock Against Sexism (R.A.S.) Amid a jumbled collage picturing shaggy-headed, bare-chested, "fuckin' awesome" white guy rockers, photo captions tell us how to succeed at rock 'n roll.

   • 2025 December 24, Nell Frizzell, “When my father first came to the UK, people bonded and looked after him. Would that happen now?”, in The Guardian‎^[1], archived from the original on 25 December 2025:

     And I will think of my father, sun-baked, scruffy and far from home, stalking the wilds of Clapham Common, saved from a dinner of roasted aesculin by people who knew the importance of making someone feel at home.

4. Scurfy.

Derived terms

• scruffily
• scruffiness
• scruffy chic

Translations

untidy in appearance

• Bulgarian: мърляв (bg) (mǎrljav)
• Catalan: malgirbat (ca), malforjat
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 邋遢的

• Finnish: epäsiisti (fi), rähjäinen (fi), nuhjuinen (fi), resuinen (fi)
• French: débraillé (fr), négligé (fr)
• German: verwahrlost (de), heruntergekommen (de), verdreckt (de) (coll.), versifft (de) (slang)
• Hungarian: pacuha (hu)
• Italian: trasandato (it)
• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Macedonian: ра́сфрлен (rásfrlen), ва́лкан (válkan), не́чист (néčist)
• Māori: pōrohe, tātarahake, kōhangaweka
• Mongolian:

  Cyrillic: хааш яаш (xaaš jaaš), заваан (mn) (zavaan)

  Mongolian script: ᠬᠠᠰᠢ
  ᠶᠠᠰᠢ (qasi yasi) ᠵᠠᠪᠠᠭᠠᠨ (ǰabaɣan)

• Polish: niechlujny (pl) m
• Portuguese: desgrenhado (pt)
• Russian: неря́шливый (ru) (nerjášlivyj), (of hair) нечёсаный (ru) (nečósanyj), (of hair) взъеро́шенный (ru) (vzʺjeróšennyj)
• Scottish Gaelic: robach
• Serbo-Croatian: neuredan (sh), zapušten (sh)
• Spanish: desaliñado (es), zarrapastroso (es), zarapastroso (Latin America), zalapastroso (Dominican Republic)
• Swedish: ovårdad (sv), sjabbig (sv), tilltufsad
• Turkish: dağınık (tr)

  Ottoman Turkish: پنتی (pinti)

See also

• scruff

Noun

scruffy (plural scruffies)

2. (informal) An artificial intelligence researcher who believes that intelligence is too complicated (or computationally intractable) to be solved with the sorts of homogeneous system favoured by the "neats".
4. (Alaska, slang) An arctic fox.
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:scruffy.