Stabby

//ˈstæbi// adj, slang

adj, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    having one or more sharp points

    "At any rate there flourished by the curbing, sure enough, a wide and very stabby cactus garden, extending Tartar hospitality."

  2. 2
    quick and thrusting

    "By means of a clever arrangement of springs down below that responded to an electric current, the whole mechanism was able to move up and down and backward and forward in short stabby jerks that were supposed to stir up your gizzard in practically the same way as the motion of a horse."

  3. 3
    sudden and acute

    "She saw a young couple go past, embarrassed and blushing under showers of rice and riotously convoyed by what clearly was an East Side bridal party. This she saw with a quick darting pang — not a pang of envy exactly, nor yet of jealousy; just a sharp, stabby, little sort of pang, that's all."

  4. 4
    staccato

    "The guitar player is playing kind of melodic licks, and the horns are stabby, accent parts."

  5. 5
    penetrating and hostile

    "Her eyes are the stabby kind, worse than long hatpins. Honest, after one glance I felt like I was bein' held up on a fork."

Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    acting in a violent and/or deranged manner slang
  2. 7
    prone to commit an act of stabbing slang

    "If I show the evidence of expanding, she looks at me like she will pop me with her Alfred Hitchcock knife. Is all of this just my expanded imagination? OR WILL YOU FINALLY BELIEVE THE WARNING I AM SAYING ABOUT THE MOTHER. THAT SHE IS GETTING FREAKY IN A STABBY WAY."

  3. 8
    angry or irritated broadly, slang

    "This fool is starting to make me feel stabby. Coming back to one of his threads is like a scab you want to pick but you just know it will get infected, yet you feel oddly compelled to see just how much of a fool he has made of himself."

Example

More examples

"At any rate there flourished by the curbing, sure enough, a wide and very stabby cactus garden, extending Tartar hospitality."

Etymology

From stab + -y.

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