scab: [13] Old English had a word sceabb ‘scab’. This survived into modern English as shab, a dialectal synonym of scab, but it is only represented in the mainstream language by its derivative shabby. It is its Old Norse relative skabbr, borrowed in the 13th century as scab, which has become the general English term for a ‘crust over a wound’.
The derogatory sense ‘strike-breaker’ emerged in the 19th century from an earlier, 16th-century ‘despicable person’. The word comes ultimately from the Germanic base *skab- ‘scratch, shave’ (source also of English shave [OE]), which was descended from the same Indo-European base that produced Latin scabiēs ‘itch’ (source of English scabies [14], scabious [14] – a plant so called because it was supposed to cure skin diseases – and scabrous [17]). => scabies, shabby, shave
scab (n.)
mid-13c., "skin disease," developed from Old English sceabb "scab, itch" (related to scafan "to shave, scrape, scratch") and from Old Norse skabb "scab, itch," both from Proto-Germanic *skab- "scratch, shave," from PIE *(s)kep- "to cut, scrape, hack" (see scabies). Sense reinforced by cognate Latin scabies "scab, itch, mange" (from scabere "to scratch").
Meaning "crust which forms over a wound or sore" is first attested c. 1400. Meaning "strikebreaker" first recorded 1806, from earlier sense of "person who refuses to join a trade union" (1777), probably from meaning "despicable person" (1580s), possibly borrowed in this sense from Middle Dutch.
雙語例句
1. The mill was started up with scab labor.
罷工期間有人堅持上工，使得工廠重新開始運轉。
來自柯林斯例句
2. When you cut yourself , blood clots and forms a scab.
你割破了, 血會凝固、結痂.
來自《簡明英漢詞典》
3. A scab formed on his leg.
他腿上結了個痂.
來自辭典例句
4. The scab has sloughed off.
痂脫落了.
來自辭典例句
5. In his heart of hearts, he sympathised with the strikers and hated this'scab. "