Squammy

//ˈskwɑːm.mi// adj, slang

adj, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Synonym of squamous (“Covered with, made of, or resembling scales; scaly.”). dated
  2. 2
    trashy; classless; unrefined; crass; uncultured; vulgar; uncouth (lacking refinement) Philippines, colloquial, slang

Synonyms

All synonyms
furfuraceousscaledscalyscarioussquamatesquamated

Etymology

From squamous + -y, where -ous was elided to extract the root. The reduplicated ⟨m⟩ is akin to runny, brimmy, etc. The Philippine slang sense is a semantic loan from Tagalog iskuwater, itself from Philippine English squatter (“poor vagrant; illegal informal settler”) due to resemblance of the first syllable. Compare Tagalog iskuwami.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.