mangy

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

mange + -y

Pronunciation

  • enPR: mānʹjē, IPA(key): /ˈmeɪndʒi/

Adjective

mangy (comparative mangier, superlative mangiest)

  1. Afflicted with mange.
  2. (by extension) Worn and squalid-looking; bedraggled or decrepit.
    Synonyms: decrepit, scruffy, shabby
    We stayed in a really mangy hotel in New York.
    • 1902, Joseph Conrad, chapter III, in Heart of Darkness:
      When we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet, nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies; they shook towards the fierce river-demon a bunch of black feathers, a mangy skin with a pendent tail— something that looked a dried gourd; they shouted periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language; and the deep murmurs of the crowd, interrupted suddenly, were like the responses of some satanic litany.

Translations

Further reading

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