stabby

Adjective

stabby (comparative stabbier, superlative stabbiest)

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.1935, The American Legion Monthly, volume 19, page 54
   • The crowd hates the picadors who deprive the bull of its first energy to fight. The picador is fat. He's got a long pole with a stabby thing on the end. His horse is blinded in cloth. His horse is old on its last legs.1971, Jill Johnston, Marmalade Me, Dutton, published 1971, page 298
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.1921, Francis Hackett, The Invisible Censor, B. W. Huebsch, Inc
   • Because they would be coming any minute now, any second, actually, and the only warning he would get would be the sound of the opening of the outside door and then two pairs of footsteps in the hall, the one sharp and stabby and the other flat, flat as the palm of your hand […]1968, Seymour Krim, Views of a Nearsighted Cannoneer, Dutton, published 1968, page 44
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.1933, Irvin S[hrewsbury] Cobb, “Pure and Simple”, in One Way to Stop a Panic, New York, N.Y.: Laugh Club, →OCLC, page 250
   • I began to develop stabby feelings of guilt. I couldn't speak enough Spanish to compete with the extension people in the office, and I spent most of my time reading old Time magazines. I would think about that eleven cents an hour that I was getting and feel like a real thief.1971, Moritz Thomsen, Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle, University of Washington Press, published 1969, page 26
4. Staccato.
   • The guitar player is playing kind of melodic licks, and the horns are stabby, accent parts.1999 August 20, “Mandorico turns from ska to Latin rock”, in Sarasota Herald-Tribune
   • Fuck yeah, Zelda kicks ass! Ratatat re-up with their second set of '80s video game-worthy instrumentals, full of stabby guitars and disco-y synths.2006, Kory Grow, review of Ratatat's album Classics, CMJ New Music Monthly, August 2006
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.1917, Sewell Ford, chapter VIII, in Wilt Thou Torchy, Grosset & Dunlap
   • Then I catches the eye of the stiff-necked dame with the straight nose and the gun-metal hair. No, both eyes, it was; and a cold, suspicious, stabby look is what they shoots my way.1918, Sewell Ford, chapter VII, in The House of Torchy, Grosset & Dunlap, page 98
6. (slang) Acting in a violent and/or deranged manner.
7. (slang) Prone to commit an act of stabbing.
   • 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.1997, Lynda Barry, Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel, Simon & Schuster, published 1999, →ISBN, page 21
   • I don’t get mad, I get stabby.1999 December 19, “Grift of the Magi”, in The Simpsons, season 11, episode 9, spoken by Fat Tony (Joe Mantegna)
8. (broadly, slang) Angry or irritated.
   • 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.2001 March 18, "GROGtheNailer", “Re: HH2002: ReAd ThIs 3dO !!!”, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.sports (Usenet)
   • Some of the tasks can be a little difficult, and thus enjoyable, but all in all they left me feeling depressed and stabby (when you feel like stabbing someone).2003, "NemeLynx", Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc review, XBoxAddict.com, 18 March 2003