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Scab   Listen
noun
Scab  n.  
1.
An incrustation over a sore, wound, vesicle, or pustule, formed by the drying up of the discharge from the diseased part.
2.
The itch in man; also, the scurvy. (Colloq. or Obs.)
3.
The mange, esp. when it appears on sheep.
4.
A disease of potatoes producing pits in their surface, caused by a minute fungus (Tiburcinia Scabies).
5.
(Founding) A slight irregular protuberance which defaces the surface of a casting, caused by the breaking away of a part of the mold.
6.
A mean, dirty, paltry fellow. (Low)
7.
A nickname for a workman who engages for lower wages than are fixed by the trades unions; also, for one who takes the place of a workman on a strike. (Cant)
8.
(Bot.) Any one of various more or less destructive fungus diseases attacking cultivated plants, and usually forming dark-colored crustlike spots.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scab" Quotes from Famous Books



... that, I think. It was he who organized our boys for the steel strike—went right in himself and took a striker's job. He came home with a black eye one night, presented to him by a picket who started something by calling him a scab. But Horace wasn't thinking about his eye. According to him, it was not in the class with the striker's upper lip. 'Father,' he said, 'I gave him more red than he could swallow. The blood just—' Well, I'll spare you—but Horace's muscle ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell

... through," he said. "Our union demands were just. Here in this war I am fighting just the same way as we fought against the mine operators in Michigan. I figure it out that Germany represents low pay, long hours and miserable working conditions for the world. I think the Kaiser is the world's greatest scab. I am over here to ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... sparing, because they have little ready money, very suspicious, because afraid of being out-witted by the English traders, and many of them so old-fashioned in their theory of the universe as to object to legislation against sheep scab, because they regard it as a visitation of Providence, to be combated only by repentance and not by ordinary human means. The women are usually ill-educated and often unattractive; but they have strong characters. Nothing was more ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... right," retorted Jimmie with a grin as he wrinkled a freckled nose at the other. "I was going to think about a scab, anyhow, so I don't need a card. Besides, ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... no heed to their commands, but made straight onward. Then one blear-eyed and scab-faced cripple scrambled up and struck off his cap with a crutch. He picked it up again without a look or a word, and strode away. But next morning, at early prayers, there was a place empty ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... he called. "You go ahead and hire a scab crew. Then you'll find out you're the same damn fool as ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... a little electric lamp flashes out, and instantly the sergeant bellows, "Ye gods! Who's the complete ass that's making a light? Are you daft? Don't you know it can be seen, you scab, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... Thanet writes this style of story almost exclusively, and any of her work selected at random would be a good illustration; her "Sketches of American Types" would be listed under (1), and such stories as "The Scab" and "Trusty No. 49" under (2). Under (1) would come also Brander Matthews' "Vignettes of Manhattan;" and under (2) Edward Everett Hale's "The Man Without a Country" and "Children ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett

... philanthropy, to religion. In labor we see men rising in brute fury against both employer and society. They deny the basic necessities of life to their fellow citizens; they bring the bludgeon of the picket down upon the head of the scab; by means of the closed shop they refuse the right to work to their brother craftsmen; they level the incapable men up and the capable men down by insisting upon uniformity of production and wage. Thus they replace the artificial inequality of the aristocrat with the artificial equality of the proletariat, ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... lightly, as they are a highly specialized crop only a little farther south. Stuart and Success are favorites here. Schley and Mahan are good if scab can be controlled. Sun scald on newly planted trees is our greatest problem, which I control by a paper wrap made by cutting two inch sections from a 36 inch roll of cheap felt-base wall paper. It gradually weathers away during the second summer. I wrap from the top down in a spiral, and ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... concerning the error of their ways. As the arguments were not taken in the proper spirit, they went on to threats; and suddenly one of them jerked off the hat of one of the four and flung it over the fence. The man started after it, and then, as a cry of "Scab!" was raised and a dozen people came running out of saloons and doorways, a second man's heart failed him and he followed. Jurgis and the fourth stayed long enough to give themselves the satisfaction of a quick exchange of blows, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... thin coverings converted into a yellow hard coat or crust, to which adheres the pus that was not removed by absorption, and the residue, by evaporation of its watery part, is now converted into a scab of varying thickness, firm and prominent in its centre, and made up outwardly of concentric circles. The margins of the pustules, before of a distinct red, now assume a bluish-red or purplish colour, and the ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... Dirty, ill-looking, scowling men; dirty, slovenly, and wickedly ugly women; children to match, snarling, filthy little curs, with a ready beggar's whine on occasion. A gipsy encampment to-day is little more than a moving slum, a scab of squalor on the fair face of ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... history I made him take off his vest, which was also very reluctantly done. But what a sight! The back of his shirt was like one solid scab! I made him open his collar, and I drew the shirt off from his shoulders and from the appearance of the shoulders and back it must have been cut to one mass of raw flesh six weeks before, as there were still large unhealed sores. I told him he must sit here until ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... waiting nor by one who keeps awake unwillingly, as each often plied the bite of his nails upon himself, because of the great rage of his itching which has no other relief. And the nails dragged down the scab, even as a knife the scales of bream or of other fish that ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... present occupiers. The present rent of land is a farthing per acre for the first and second years, a halfpenny for the third, and three farthings for the fourth and every succeeding year. Most of the waste lands in the province are now paying three farthings per acre. There is the danger also of scab. This appears to depend a good deal upon the position of the run and its nature. Thus, a run situated in the plains over which sheep are being constantly driven from the province of Nelson, will be in more danger than one on the remoter regions ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... putrefaction inside the wound. He also set himself to devise some 'protective' which would enable Nature to do her healing work without further interference from without. Animals have the power to form quickly a natural scab over a wound, which is impermeable and at the same time elastic. The human skin, after a slight wound, in a pure atmosphere, may heal quickly; but a serious wound may continue open for a long time, discharging 'pus' at intervals, while ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... height, and the pustule should be opened, if not for the purpose of vaccinating other children, to allow the escape of the lymph, and subdue the inflammatory action. After the twelfth day the centre is covered by a brown scab, and the colour of the swelling becomes darker, gradually declining in hardness and colour till the twentieth, when the scab falls, off, leaving a small pit, or cicatrix, to mark the seat of the disease, and for life prove ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... have ceased, we have a condition known as chronic clap, which is nothing more or less than gleet. At this time most of the symptoms have abated, and the principal one needing medical attention is the discharge, which is generally thin, and often only noticed in the morning on arising, when a scab will be noticed, glutinating the lips of the external orifice. Or, on pressing with the thumb and finger from behind, forward, a thin, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... instructed me. She taught me on shipboard what to say if I was taken to court. She beat me with thick sticks of firewood. She beat me with the fire tongs. One day she took a hot flatiron, removed my clothes and held it on my naked back until I howled with pain. (The scab was on her back when she came to the Mission.) My forehead is all scars caused by her throwing heavy pieces of wood at my head. One cut a large gash and the blood ran out. She stopped the bleeding and hid me away. I thought I better get away before she killed me. When she ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... married for money, compared with the prostitute," says Havelock Ellis, "is the true scab. She is paid less, gives much more in return in labor and care, and is absolutely bound to her master. The prostitute never signs away the right over her own person, she retains her freedom and personal rights, nor is she always compelled to ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... path, formed by droves of wild cattle; but in vain did I search for the impression of a human foot step. This path I followed until it lead to a fording place in the river, where I paused, dreading the effect of fresh water on my sores, some of which had begun to scab over. But my situation would not admit delay; I therefore forded the river, which had been so swollen by recent rains, that I was compelled to wade up to my arm-pits. This produced the apprehended effect; for I had no sooner reached the opposite shore, than ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins

... our nearest relations. These sores were a great trouble to us during the latter part of the journey. The slightest gust of wind produced a sensation as if one's face were being cut backwards and forwards with a blunt knife. They lasted a long time, too; I can remember Hanssen removing the last scab when we were coming into Hobart — three months later. We were very lucky in the weather during this depot work; the sun came out all at once, and we had an excellent opportunity of taking some good azimuth observations, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... they would stop at a deserted-looking station, round which stood a few shanties, and the inevitable public house. Maybe it had formerly been a sheepfold, abandoned when the scab had destroyed the flocks; and there were enormous rusty iron boiling-pots to which a fetid odour still clung, and where the dust that blew up, had the grittiness and faint smell of sun-dried ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... is an exploded doctrine that the application of lime to potato ground causes scab, it is a fact that it will aid in spreading the disease. Hiram was sure enough—because of the sheep-sorrel on the piece—that it all needed sweetening, but he decided against the lime at ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... that identical sound; and recognition was instantaneous. Swift as memory he recalled the strike that had been its cause, the horde of sympathisers who had of a sudden appeared as from the very earth, the white face and desperate figure of the solitary "scab" fighting a moment, and a moment only, for life, in their midst. Swift as memory came that picture; and swift upon its heels, blotting it out, the present returned. Clifford Mitchell had not been among this people long; yet already he had caught the spirit of the ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... flag clip cliff grit slip grin frog grip slat trot trill stiff slop spot blot prig sled still sniff drip slap slab scan scud twit step spin brag span crab stag glen drag slum stab crag trim skill skim slim glad crop drop snuff skin skip scab snob skull snip bled stun twin dress grab drill skiff from swell drug twig grim snap scum bran stub snag stem plum sped spill prop slam drum gruff snug tress snub smell ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett

... merchants, artisans, religious and philosophical sects, political parties, academies and learned societies, punish by social penalties dissent from, or disobedience to, their code of group conduct. The modern trades union, in its treatment of a "scab," only presents another example. The group also, by a majority, adopts a programme of policy and then demands of each member that he shall work and make sacrifices for what has been resolved upon for the group interest. He who refuses is a renegade or apostate ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... one man, and will have two men, on the southern pecan diseases in Georgia, on pecan scab and pecan leaf diseases, who are winning out beautifully, and have nearly solved many of the problems, including the pecan scab. One of the difficulties is the occasional late summer rainy spell, bringing diseases ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... is thick hair it does not rise as a blister, but oozes out a straw-colored fluid which concretes on the hairs in an amber-colored mass. In one or two days after the pock is full it becomes yellow from contained pus and then dries into a brownish-yellow scab, which finally falls, leaving one or more distinct pits in the skin. Upon the teats, however, this regular course is rarely seen; the vesicles are burst by the hands of the milker as soon as liquid is formed, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... believed that in spite of poachers, Cougars, snow slides, and scab contracted from domestic sheep, the Bighorn in the Yellowstone Park had increased to considerably over two hundred, and the traveller can find them with fair certainty if he will devote a few days to the quest around Mt. Evarts, ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... He was possessed of an insatiable curiosity about it. This took him to the slums of Verden, to the redlight district, to Socialist meetings, to a striking coal camp near the city where he narrowly escaped being killed as a scab. He knew that something was wrong with our social life. Inextricably blended with success and happiness he saw everywhere pain, defeat, and confusion. Why must such things ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... familiar with them. In childhood I learned the words of the prophet: 'Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet; therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... luncheon to which I had accepted an invitation, the waitress, whom I did not know, said to my prospective hostess that she was sure I could not come. Upon being asked for her reason she replied that she had seen in the morning paper that the strikers had killed a "scab" and she was sure that I would feel quite too badly about such a thing to be able to keep a social engagement. In spite of the confused issues, she evidently realized my despair over the violence in a ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... pus forms in wounds, they should be at once reopened and allowed to drain. It very often follows after cuts—particularly if they be not properly cleansed—that a scab forms on the outside, holding beneath a greater or less amount of pus. The presence of the latter can generally be inferred by a wound presenting a red and angry appearance around its edges, and from swelling and pain. As soon as such a condition is observed, the scab should be thoroughly ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... anti-Chinese agitation in Australia, and he was known to have kindly feelings towards the Afghans who, with their camels, were running white carriers off the roads. If an excited Unionist called a man a "blackleg" or "scab" in the Imperial bar he was run out—sometimes with great difficulty, and occasionally as ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson

... do it," said the girl. "I'm chairman of our Scab Committee. There's 400 of us girls locked out just because we demanded 50 cents a week raise in wages, and ice water, and for the foreman to shave off his mustache. You're too nice a looking girl to be a scab. Wouldn't ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... went only 2-1/2 miles to the village of Marenga, a very large one, situated at the eastern edge of the bottom of the heel of the Lake. The chief is ill of a loathsome disease derived direct from the Arabs. Raised patches of scab of circular form disfigure the face and neck as well as other parts. His brother begged me to see him and administer some remedy for the same complaint. He is at a village a little way off, and though sent for, was too ill to come or to be carried. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... class. Already we can note manifestations of this new proletarian morality in that sense of class solidarity exhibited by the workers in the many acts of kindness and assistance of the employed to the unemployed, and more especially in the detestation in which the scab ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

... exception, from the first to the last. Hypocrisy engenders wickedness. It is a sore which spreads and becomes leprosy. Everything which touches it catches it. Those who associate with hypocrites become hypocrites, and then scoundrels, slowly but surely by infection. That is the logic of the scab. It is not necessary to dress up in a black gown and to swallow God in public to make a perfect priestling, it is enough to rub against the priest's cap. Look at the sacristans, the beadles, the lackeys of the Bishop's palace, the hirers ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... under the law were not to be shy or squeamish in case there were any that had the plague or leprosy, scab or blotches; but must look on them, go to them, and offer for them (Lev 13), all which is to signify, that Jesus Christ should not refuse to take notice of the several infirmities of the poorest people, but to teach ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... were wretched-looking objects. I remember a very old man, who was thus affected, being tried and hung, for spearing one of Mr. Hart's men; the culprit was so ill and infirm as to be obliged to be carried to the place of execution. I think the colonial surgeons call the disease the "bush scab;" and that it is occasioned by a filthy mode of life. The population of natives is very small in proportion to the extent of the island: several causes may be alleged for their smallness of numbers; the principal one is their having been driven about from place to place, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various

... SHEEP.—"Scab" is a contagious and persistent skin disease that affects sheep, and is destructive when not controlled. Fifteen years ago it prevailed in some portions of the west. In Colorado it has several times been reported that many bighorn mountain sheep were killed ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... nice friendly little chap, at first, about the size of a small hen—very much like most other young birds, only bigger. His plumage was a dirty brown to begin with, with a sort of grey scab that fell off it very soon, and scarcely feathers—a kind of downy hair. I can hardly express how pleased I was to see him. I tell you, Robinson Crusoe don't make near enough of his loneliness. But here was interesting company. He looked at me and winked his eye from the front backwards, like ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... of the scrotum, which was larger than a man's head, and studded with warts. One of these unfortunate objects had both legs much swollen, especially about the ankle, where the skin was almost obliterated by large scab-like warts, the other, besides the diseased leg, had a huge tumour on the inner ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... him," said the archer. "He was a lean little rat of a man, with a scab on his chin. The first time we had five thousand crowns out of him, though he made much ado about it. The second time we asked ten thousand, but it was three days before we could come to terms, and I am of opinion myself that we might have done better by plundering ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... more attentive disciple. To tell the truth, Requien was not a man of learning so much as an enthusiastic collector. Very few would have felt capable of competing with him when it came to giving the name or the geographical distribution of a plant. A blade of grass, a pad of moss, a scab of lichen, a thread of seaweed: he knew them all. The scientific name flashed across his mind at once. What an unerring memory, what a genius for classification amid the enormous mass of things observed! I stood aghast at it. I owe much to Requien in the domain of ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre



Words linked to "Scab" :   skin, russet scab, worker, eschar, fink, blackleg, wheat scab, heal, solid body substance, do work, rat



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