shoddy

Meanings

Adjective

• Of poor quality or construction
• pretentious, sham, counterfeit
• ambitious by reason of newly-acquired wealth; nouveau riche

Noun

• A low-grade cloth made from by-products of wool processing, or from recycled wool.
• Worthless goods.
• Vulgar pretence or sham.

Origin

• Unknown, but possibly from shoad, equivalent to shoad + -y; or possibly from the Arabic word for reuse. Shoad was of inferior quality for building.
• The modern adjectival sense was apparently derived from inexpensive shoddy, which was not really suitable for (but was sometimes still used for) things such as military uniforms at the beginning of the US Civil War.