How to Use scruffy in a Sentence

scruffy

adjective

• 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
• Shavitz died in 2015, but his scruffy face still graces his products.
  — OregonLive.com, 25 Oct. 2017
• 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
• After takeoff, the same woman went to the bar to get a drink and spotted said scruffy man.
  — Samantha Leal, Marie Claire, 27 Jan. 2016
• 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
• At about 6 a.m., the bus drops off the workers at a corner coffee shop in scruffy Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv.
  — Mohammed Daraghmeh, The Seattle Times, 3 June 2017
• 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
• And though Guthrie was famously scruffy, the rest of the Weavers needed some cleaning up, too.
  — Longreads, 26 Oct. 2017
• 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
• Meanwhile, others joked that the scruffy look would land retweeters years of good luck.
  — Char Adams, PEOPLE.com, 27 June 2017
• 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
• The movie’s a rude, scruffy winner, a music bio/cash-in reconfigured as a deadly serious prank.
  — Ty Burr, Washington Post, 1 Aug. 2024
• SpaceX, Boeing’s competitor, which has been ferrying astronauts to and from the space station for the past four years—no longer a scruffy start-up but a trusted government partner—will bring the astronauts home instead, in February of next year.
  — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 25 Aug. 2024

Last Updated: 12 Nov 2024