(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.
Threadbare
Definition:
(a.) Worn to the naked thread; having the nap worn off; threadbare clothes.
(a.) Fig.: Worn out; as, a threadbare subject; stale topics and threadbare quotations.
Example Sentences:
(1) He said the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, due for renewal next year, was "threadbare" and that the existing nuclear powers would be in a much better position to tell non-nuclear countries not to develop weapons if they pursued deep cuts in their stockpiles.
(2) However, Australia are a threadbare side with absolutely nothing about them.
(3) Substitute Felipe Pardo scores twice as Olympiakos beat Dinamo Zagreb Read more Wenger’s options on the bench looked threadbare; Bayern’s rather less so and Pep Guardiola was able to introduce Robben in the 54th minute.
(4) The 57-year-old, working with a threadbare squad which contained just eight players and no senior goalkeeper when the pre-season friendlies started , has publicly questioned the club’s transfer policy on a number of occasions.
(5) Why keep daytime TV churning through the wastes of the day on both BBC1 and BBC2 when one channel could do the threadbare run of Angela Lansbury series and jumble-sale reality without anyone missing or caring?
(6) It is the point where the already threadbare veil of "meritocracy" falls off to reveal a fiscal system designed to reward already concentrated pots of wealth.
(7) With Tom Huddlestone, Jermaine Jenas, David Bentley and Danny Rose all unfit too, Tottenham's midfield has a threadbare look.
(8) But the reaction leaves BOJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s assertion that his policy is having its intended effects looking increasingly threadbare.
(9) Most of it is pretty threadbare, especially since photos exist of Boris and Zac with some of the same people.
(10) Pellegrini had criticised Uefa for allowing the match to go ahead on a threadbare pitch that he described as "unbelievable".
(11) 2007: It snapped up Coley Pharmaceutical of the US for a relatively modest $164m in order to boost Pfizer's threadbare pipeline of new drugs.
(12) [A few months ago, I signed a letter with Monbiot and others to British Prime Minister David Cameron, arguing that environmentalists were dressing up their doctrinaire technophobic opposition to all things nuclear behind scaremongering and often threadbare arguments about cost.
(13) The shutdown has closed national parks, museums and monuments, and reduced many government departments and agencies to a threadbare staff.
(14) 5.03pm BST 1 min: The pitch is threadbare but also unnaturally green - a jarring combo.
(15) The threadbare agreement thrashed out last night has not even laid the foundations.
(16) This was not the home debut David Moyes had hoped for when he succeeded Sam Allardyce last month but Sunderland’s new manager deserves praise for making the best of some extremely threadbare resources.
(17) Since I arrived in the Netherlands last December, I did not get any money to buy a single item of clothing,” says Fahmi, still making do with a threadbare jacket and boots given to him by the Red Cross in Hungary.
(18) Some professors hold on to their careers for dear tenure, eking out threadbare research material and desperately placing articles in whichever journal will take them.
(19) Even the Liberal Democrats have joined this rhetorical arms race, ripping apart their threadbare integrity.
(20) Not bad for an entrepreneur who recalls helping his mum colour in the pattern on the family's threadbare carpets with oil paints when he was a child.