scabious
scabious adjective: having scabs.
Adjective
scabious (comparative more scabious, superlative most scabious)
- Having scabs.
- Of or pertaining to scabies.
Noun
scabious (plural scabiouses)
- Any of various herbaceous plants of the genus Scabiosa.
- The grassy track, so gay with scabious and bedstraw, was snow-white at the bottom of its ruts.1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part I, XII [Uniform ed., p. 128]
- Any of several plants of the genus Knautia.
Synonyms of scabious
Forms of scabious
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more scabious |
| superlative | most scabious |
| Noun | |
| plural | scabiouses |
Origin of scabious
From Medieval Latin scabiōsus (“scabious”), from Latin scabiēs (see scabies); partly reinterpretable as scab + -ious.
] From Medieval Latin scabiōsa, substantivized from scabiōsus (“scabious”), see Etymology 1; the name comes from their medical use in the Middle Ages to cure scabies and leprosy.
Words formed from scabious
- antiscabious
- blue scabious
- devil's bit scabious
- field scabious
- sheep's bit scabious
- sweet scabious
Questions about scabious
- What does scabious mean?
- Scabious means having scabs.
- What part of speech is scabious?
- Scabious can be an adjective or a noun.
Words near scabious in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scabious (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “scabious.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scabious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.