What's the difference between paltry and shabby?

Paltry


Definition:

  • (superl.) Mean; vile; worthless; despicable; contemptible; pitiful; trifling; as, a paltry excuse; paltry gold.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) She says that the spread of insecure, short-term contracts and part-time work, together with benefits cuts and paltry wage growth, have meant that many people in work are struggling to make ends meet.
  • (2) Let’s leave that discussion to another day, but imagine a combination of the two – sort of Transformers meets Ex Machina – in which a race of giant sexy robots battles it out with another race of really mean giant sexy robots while paltry human beings look on in awe, and teenage boys (and girls) experience incredibly conflicting and disturbing sensual awakenings in the front row of the Beckenham Odeon.
  • (3) Only Orange's pay monthly deals come with Wi-Fi access and they only include a paltry 750MB of Wi-Fi browsing – again through BT Openzone's network of hotspots.
  • (4) In 2010 Bedder 6 paid out total dividends of £1.68m — which saw Clarkson pocket a comparatively paltry £850,000 when his share is calculated and his annual service payment is added in — meaning his income from Bedder 6 has almost tripled year on year.
  • (5) A paltry 50g of brown rice takes up over a third of your daily calorie count.
  • (6) By his own lofty standards Cavendish's return of two stage wins from this year's Tour has been paltry and myriad signs of hitherto unseen fallibility, a team that is clearly not good enough to work in his service and suggestions that his star is on the wane will leave him with much to ponder.
  • (7) If the recession results in interest rates remaining low for years, as many in the City are now predicting, then annuity rates will also remain at paltry levels.
  • (8) Frontex’s annual budget is a paltry €90m (£65m).
  • (9) Russia and China , meanwhile, have contributed a paltry $17.8 million and $1.2 million, respectively.
  • (10) It is the result of rejecting the world of public disengagement and laissez faire that delivered one paltry gold medal in Atlanta just 16 years ago.
  • (11) The value has now decreased slightly and their share probably sits at a paltry $10m.
  • (12) In 1959, US intelligence estimates suggested that the USSR would be in possession of between 1,000 and 1,500 nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) compared to America’s paltry 100.
  • (13) Co-operative customer #3 is making do with a paltry state pension, subsidising the cost of groceries with a fortnightly package from the local food bank and unable to afford energy bills.
  • (14) The food industry spends over £1bn a year on marketing in the UK, compared with the paltry £14m spent on the government's anti-obesity campaign.
  • (15) The Italians are earning paltry returns from knocking out white goods in competition with the Chinese and Koreans.
  • (16) A paltry £1,000 for each marginal Labour candidate hardly buys a poster site.
  • (17) The sums are so paltry that the animus seems deliberate.
  • (18) As he itemises the contents of the pawnbroker's shop ("a few old China cups; some modern vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers playing three Spanish guitars; or a party of boors carousing: each boor with one leg painfully elevated in the air by way of expressing his perfect freedom and gaiety …") you sense that Dickens barely knows how to stop.
  • (19) Yet he went on to pretend a paltry array of stimuli will fix the problem: he cannot possibly believe that loose change from the petty cash will arrest the plunge in employment and growth.
  • (20) Growth for the UK in 2012 will be a paltry 0.6%, the IMF says.

Shabby


Definition:

  • (n.) Torn or worn to rage; poor; mean; ragged.
  • (n.) Clothed with ragged, much worn, or soiled garments.
  • (n.) Mean; paltry; despicable; as, shabby treatment.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) While the opening tranche of "tales" derive from the work of forgotten contemporary humorists, the pieces of London reportage that he began to contribute to the Morning Chronicle in autumn 1834 ("Gin Shops", "Shabby-Genteel People", "The Pawnbroker's Shop") are like nothing else in pre-Victorian journalism: bantering and hard-headed by turns, hectic and profuse, falling over themselves to convey every last detail of the metropolitan front-line from which Dickens sent back his dispatches.
  • (2) Given what is now known about the way the case was made for launching an arguably illegal war – this country's biggest foreign policy debacle since Suez – Heywood's refusal to release the conversations smacks of a shabby cover-up at worst, or foot-dragging in a moderately more charitable interpretation.
  • (3) It is not something you can deal with tactically and this is a tactic, this is a stunt, it is simply designed to distract the house and the public and the people from the shabby tactics of the Labor party.
  • (4) Alistair Darling 's self-serving memoir only reminds us of his own shabby role when he, more than any other, had the power to do it.
  • (5) Photographs from inside the flat showed a cramped and shabby home whose contents had been turned over by investigators.
  • (6) To be fair, that was probably a much better use of Miliband's time, given Labour's shabby showing in the opinion polls.
  • (7) "I only had two hours sleep after we finished partying before going on breakfast TV this morning," she says, despite the fact she is filling this tiny room, a shabby corner of the new BBC building in central London, with her warp-scale energy.
  • (8) But here inBritain – crammed into a shabby and overcrowded carriage on your way (thank God) out of your stressful City job – is there any joy to the journey?
  • (9) The UK chain generates two thirds of group profits and had been milked to bankroll international expansion, leading to shabby stores and deteriorating customer service.
  • (10) So what if the rooms are tiny, shabby and atmosphere-free?
  • (11) Appraising his shabby suit, the jeweller suggests he pick up something cheaper from the local bazaar.
  • (12) San Diego made some gesture towards addressing their shabby offensive line play by drafting offensive tackle DJ Fluker in the first round, but they needed to do more.
  • (13) In her day this was a gritty neighbourhood and it hasn’t changed much, with a shabby market by the metro station and blocks of peeling townhouses; this is the real, old Paris, the world she sang about, with its desperate cast of thieves and tramps and lovers.
  • (14) He told MPs he personally objected to having to pay a television licence fee of £145.50, as he attacked the coverage of the jubilee celebrations as "scandalous, shabby and rather unprofessional".
  • (15) The judge, perched in front of a shabby Russian flag, refused to look at the defence.
  • (16) Around 40 people crammed into the shabby courtroom, as dozens of journalists were left stranded outside, blocked from entering by burly police.
  • (17) His B of the Bang sculpture in Manchester was dismantled after it started shedding metal, and his Blue Carpet in Newcastle was late and over budget and in the space of a few years became grey and shabby .
  • (18) Malcolm Turnbull has launched a forceful defence of his investments in funds registered in the Cayman Islands , while condemning Labor for mounting a “shabby smear campaign” about his personal wealth, based on “the politics of envy”.
  • (19) When the PM next berates Jeremy Corbyn over a shabby suit, the Labour leader will be able to reply that, unlike Cameron, he isn’t receiving a subsidy for it from the party.
  • (20) The Senate was less than impressed with that shabby process and the Senate voted last night.” The government announced in the 2015 budget that it would give the Australian tax office greater powers to stop global companies using “artificial or contrived arrangements” to avoid tax obligations – but the Senate passed the legislation only after making an amendment relating to tax transparency.