scabrous

adj

1. Covered with scales or scabs; hence, very coarse or rough.

   “After the incident with the gasoline, Noel’s burnt arm remained scabrous and was susceptible to infections.”

   “I was ſurpriz'd to ſee Mars continue quite round, though hardly, to Appearance, disjoin'd from the ſcabrous Edge of the Moon; but that Inſtant I thought it began to loſe its Figure.—Clouds.”

   “Lumbricus ſcaber. The rough Lumbricus. The Sea-worm. This ſpecies grows to a foot, or more, in length, and to the thickneſs of a man's finger. It is of a pale red colour, and is compoſed of a number of rings or annular joints, as it were, in the manner of the other; but the ſkin is ſcabrous, and all theſe rings are covered with little prominences, ſo that it is extreamly rough to the touch.”

   “[Helianthus] frondosus, […] stem smooth below, leaves lance ovate, remotely and acutely serrate, scabrous above, paler and sub-scabrous beneath, 3-nerved: peduncles scabrous; petiole ciliate; calyx squarose, undulate, leafy, ciliate: rays 8-flowered.”

   “The Veins of old Persons are apt to become varicose and this is where the greatest column of Blood—the Valves loosing ^([sic]) their power is the cause of the disease. The Blood by this Means is not kept from gravitating to yᵉ foot the Consequences are Scabrous Skin and Ulcers.”

2. (figuratively)Disgusting, repellent.

   “The novel was a flagrantly scabrous bodice-ripper, and Rachael was ashamed to read it in public.”

   “This typifies the man, body and soul, who is transformed after Baptism, that is to say, after the entrance of the priest, and then takes up once more the scabrous contaminations of the flesh.”

   “In the Pilot Plan, women shop in brightly lit, hygienic supermarkets; in the Social Security Invasion, they must be content with tiny rat-infested shops or scabrous open air markets.”

   “What began as a zeitgeisty outlaw romp in the Uncool Britannia of the 1990s is now reborn as a scabrous and brutal black comedy about middle-aged male disappointment and fear of death.”

3. (figuratively)Salacious, scandalous; concerning oneself with lurid or lascivious substance.

   “Remember a few years ago there was that scabrous movie Snuff? When it played in New York there were enormous protests, huge publicity — and huge crowds and profits at the theater.”

4. (figuratively)Of music, writing, etc.: lacking refinement; unmelodious, unmusical.

   “[A]s his Verse is ſcabrous, and hobbling, and his Words not every where well choſen, the purity of Latin being more corrupted, than in the time of Juvenal, and conſequently of Horace, who writ when the Language was in the heighth of its perfection; ſo his diction is hard; his Figures are generally too bold and daring; and his Tropes, particularly his Metaphors, inſufferably ſtrain'd.”

   “In January 1826 Stendhal wrote for The New Monthly Review a lengthy account of a novel called Olivier which was then the talk of the Paris salons. The author of this highly romantic, scabrous and worthless fiction was Henri de la Touche, but all believed, as the publisher intended that they should, that Olivier was from the pen of the famous Mme [Claire] de Duras […]”

5. (figuratively)Difficult, thorny, troublesome, requiring tact.

   “These were things which gave him [Louis XI of France] no concern; and he went on alone, without taking any advice, in the scabrous path of novelty, turning his back on antiquity, and laughing at it. When solemnly remonstrated with by its most venerable representatives, he smiled and shrugged his shoulders.”

6. (US, figuratively)Covered with a crust of dirt or grime.

   “She twisted her head away from him and stared at the scabrous papered wall beside the bed.”

7. Having scabers.