British colloquial for someone or something that looks scruffy, unkempt, or a bit rough around the edges — thin and ragged rather than deliberately dishevelled. You might describe a scratty flat, a scratty outfit, or a scratty-looking stranger. It implies not quite dirty but definitely not put-together, with a slight edge of sympathy. Common in northern England and well understood across the UK.
She rolled in to the interview looking scratty, and spent the whole time picking at her sleeve.
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(colloquial, chiefly, UK) Thin, meagre; unkempt.
"scratty" means: Thin, meagre; unkempt.. This is informal slang, common in casual speech, texting and social media, but not appropriate for school work, applications or professional settings. There is no real cause for concern in itself; it is everyday peer vocabulary. If your child uses it, a light comment about audience and register is usually enough — no need to escalate. Context, more than the word, tells you whether to follow up.
"scratty" means: Thin, meagre; unkempt.. Register: informal slang, fine in casual conversation, texting and social media but not in academic essays, business writing or formal speech. Note the regional or dialect label (UK) — usage may sound odd outside that variety. A common non-native mistake is to use the word in the wrong register, or to assume one fixed meaning when it is actually polysemous; always check the surrounding register and the audience before producing it yourself. In formal writing, prefer a neutral synonym or a short descriptive phrase, and use this word only when you have heard or read it being used naturally in a comparable context.
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UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
See all British & Irish slang slang on Slangora.
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