How to Use scruffy in a Sentence

scruffy

adjective
Definition of scruffynext
Synonyms for scruffynext
  • The neighborhood is full of dilapidated houses with scruffy backyards.
  • The 36-year-old entered the room with a scruffy beard and weary look.
    — Chloé Cooper Jones, GQ, 25 May 2018
  • Gezi Park still stands, a scruffy patch of grass and trees.
    — The Economist, 20 Feb. 2020
  • The scruffy children in the streets of the ghetto — one of them could have been me.
    — Bryan Marquard, BostonGlobe.com, 17 Sep. 2023
  • Shawn is tall and lean, with long dreadlocks and a scruffy beard.
    — Richard Mertens, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 Mar. 2022
  • Its sound, a heaving wave with scruffy edges, is easy to get lost in.
    — Washington Post, 30 Oct. 2021
  • Along the way, the train passed rows of small grocery stores, churches and scruffy palm trees.
    — Rachel Swan, SFChronicle.com, 10 Dec. 2019
  • My husband is sick of seeing the scruffy look, as well.
    — Ellen Warren, chicagotribune.com, 2 July 2018
  • One child played with his beard, and the scruffy Duke happily obliged.
    — Erica Gonzales, Harper's BAZAAR, 11 July 2018
  • Mario Ybarra, 65, does not fit the profile of the scruffy day worker.
    — John MacCormack, ExpressNews.com, 18 Mar. 2020
  • On one of his first days, Clark ran into a scruffy, scrawny blonde dude with a patchy Fu Manchu.
    — Chris Ballard, SI.com, 2 May 2018
  • The older people, who should have known better, were worse, and the scruffy men were worst of all.
    — Carl Nolte, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 Nov. 2021
  • Marchant, a scruffy professor at BU, was a rock star of rock study.
    — David Kushner, WIRED, 4 Apr. 2024
  • The neighbor—a scruffy-bearded white man in jeans and a T-shirt—came outside to meet him.
    — Ben Austen, The New Republic, 21 June 2018
  • The suspect, described as a man in a blue and white shirt with a scruffy beard, was never found.
    — Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, OregonLive.com, 1 May 2018
  • My heart smiled at the sight of the scruffy little bird splashing about in the garden fountain.
    — Ernie Cowan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 Nov. 2022
  • Even a scruffy journalist like me could afford to live the dream.
    — Bernhard Warner, Fortune, 9 June 2020
  • Word on the street says the Great Frogs team has a refined palate—the scruffy pups in particular.
    — Kaitlyn Yarborough, Southern Living, 25 July 2023
  • In one photo, two teen-age girls sit on the curb in a motel parking lot, next to a scruffy patch of grass.
    — Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 2 Apr. 2020
  • It’s of a horse-like figure with big, round eyes, a scruffy mane and a tail coming out of its belly.
    — USA Today, 9 June 2022
  • Clientele were desert rats, young and old, some long-haired and scruffy, some clean-shaven with cowboy hats.
    — Rosecrans Baldwin, Travel + Leisure, 30 Mar. 2023
  • The man was described as an older white man with gray hair and scruffy facial hair.
    — Joe Robertson, kansascity, 25 Feb. 2018
  • But a scruffy black-haired dog named Holly pranced through the snow with a coat cinched around her torso and a pink ball in her mouth.
    — New York Times, 22 Mar. 2018
  • Their locks are scruffy, scraggly; tousled for the boys, and wispy for those whose boyhoods were long ago.
    — Michael Paulson Roderick Aichinger, New York Times, 24 Aug. 2022
  • If the plants start to look scruffy, shear off the top one-third of leafy growth and spent flower stems to rejuvenate.
    — Arricca Sansone, Country Living, 1 Aug. 2018
  • The Georgian townhouse is a brisk walk away from the glassy new tech district that has sprung up around a once-scruffy dock area.
    — Michael Birnbaum, Washington Post, 15 Apr. 2018
  • Richards, who is thirty-six, with a scruffy beard, was wearing a navy barn jacket and grimy jeans.
    — Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, 22 Feb. 2021
  • Giving the speech that day was a 26-year-old Viktor Orban, wearing a scruffy suit and a head of thick dark curls.
    — Amanda Coakley/budapest, Time, 22 Mar. 2022
  • Both victims described him as a white man with brown hair and scruffy facial hair.
    — Ajc Homepage, ajc, 14 Mar. 2018
  • Wearing his red union baseball cap and tending the blaze inside an oil drum, Mr. Bohne, 56, looks like a scruffy Santa Claus.
    — Erika Solomon, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'scruffy.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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