shabby-genteel

[ shab-ee-jen-teel ]

adjective
  1. trying to maintain dignity and self-respect despite shabbiness.

Origin of shabby-genteel

1
First recorded in 1745–55

Other words from shabby-genteel

  • shab·by-gen·til·i·ty [shab-ee-jen-til-i-tee], /ˈʃæb i dʒɛnˈtɪl ɪ ti/, noun

Words Nearby shabby-genteel

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use shabby-genteel in a sentence

  • Tom saw a shabby-genteel sort of person, whose back was towards him, directing a letter.

  • He joined the ranks of the shabby-genteel to live somehow by bits of honest work, mixed with a great deal of dishonest work.

    London's Underworld | Thomas Holmes
  • The doctor sat in a little parlour, in a shabby-genteel street of close-packed middle London.

  • For six years Amelia did live on this pittance in shabby genteel poverty with her boy and her parents in Fulham.

    The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII | Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
  • He had sat by, and let this shabby-genteel doctor, years older than the girl, walk away with her.

    The Breaking Point | Mary Roberts Rinehart

British Dictionary definitions for shabby-genteel

shabby-genteel

adjective
  1. preserving or aspiring to the forms and manners of gentility despite appearing shabby

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012