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prettygoodwordscabrous (SKAB-ruhs) - adj., covered with scales or scabs; hence, very coarse or rough; hence, disgusting, repellent; hence, dealing with suggestive, indecent, or scandalous themes; difficult, thorny, troublesome.
I don't usually made explicit the chain of shifting meanings, but the line-up was too good to miss here. I didn't link the last sense because I'm not sure where it links. The root sense is, as you might hope, the first: Latin scaber, rough/scabby/scurfy, which we took up around 1580.
---L.
I don't usually made explicit the chain of shifting meanings, but the line-up was too good to miss here. I didn't link the last sense because I'm not sure where it links. The root sense is, as you might hope, the first: Latin scaber, rough/scabby/scurfy, which we took up around 1580.
---L.
