When he did call the shabbiness of the house and the manifest poverty of the family rather disgusted him, but somehow Jennie seemed as sweet to him as ever.    From Wordnik.com.  [Jennie Gerhardt] Reference

As the century waned, even the most ardent New Yorkers looked around and saw a kind of shabbiness at the heart of their town.    From Wordnik.com.  [WASN'T THE GRASS GREENER A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories]

(generally) behaving very ill on this question, and their shabbiness is the more striking because the Government have behaved so well.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 (Volume 1 of 3)] Reference

Well, maybe old money was allowed a little shabbiness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Mistress of Justice]

They'd crab our swim, but the Old Scuttler's shabbiness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891] Reference

Visitors also note a new shabbiness in once chic London.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Victim Of Success] Reference

Their gray uniforms were worn beyond the point of shabbiness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Awakening] Reference

Could anyone in a government office display greater shabbiness?.    From Wordnik.com.  [Poor Folk] Reference

Mentally she was taking a scornful inventory of her own shabbiness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Glory and the Other Girl] Reference

But his friendliness couldn't compensate for the facility's shabbiness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Renting a Place for All Your Stuff] Reference

The spring light of course showed up the shabbiness of the chair-covers.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Years] Reference

Coney's shabbiness, its seediness, was exactly what held wonder for them.    From Wordnik.com.  [Lynn Harris: HuffPost Exclusive! Excerpt: Death By Chick Lit] Reference

Drew with some deliberation, noting his thinness, itemizing his shabbiness.    From Wordnik.com.  [Ride Proud, Rebel!] Reference

Alan was unprepared for the shabbiness of the house where the gambler lived.    From Wordnik.com.  [Starman's Quest] Reference

He had seemed totally unconcerned by the near-shabbiness of his green jacket.    From Wordnik.com.  [Beyond the Sunrise]

The shabbiness of this place actually beats Ireland, and that is a strong word.    From Wordnik.com.  [Notes of a Journey From Cornhill to Grand Cairo] Reference

The very expression of the face changes when one has passed from shabbiness into elegance.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Dodge Club or, Italy in MDCCCLIX] Reference

In their otherness, birds are a reminder of the burden and attendant shabbiness of being human.    From Wordnik.com.  [Selected Poems by Robert Bringhurst] Reference

More like the Metropolitan Opera House of modern-day moneymaking, cloaked in humdrum shabbiness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The House That Goldman Built] Reference

There is something imposing in this, and it is an excellent apology for shabbiness into the bargain.    From Wordnik.com.  [Sketches by Boz] Reference

I was so accustomed by this time to lavish surroundings that the shabbiness of the Suruya surprised me.    From Wordnik.com.  [Memoirs of a Geisha]

Ikey looked away so as not to see the perfect cut of it, the perfect fit of it, the utter shabbiness of it.    From Wordnik.com.  [McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908.] Reference

He had taken off his white apron of waiter, and was disreputable in all the shabbiness of his attire as cook.    From Wordnik.com.  [Balcony Stories] Reference

She would not have forgotten either the shabbiness of his appearance or the toughness of his face and figure.    From Wordnik.com.  [Beyond the Sunrise]

It was rather worn, even in the kindly firelight, and gave an emphasis to the shabbiness of the whole figure.    From Wordnik.com.  [Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge] Reference

Her own clothes were in the last stage of shabbiness, but what money she had she spent on getting new ones for.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Beth Book Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius] Reference

The cord was a band of raw gold, gleaming brighter, perhaps, because of the shabbiness of the hat it now graced.    From Wordnik.com.  [Ride Proud, Rebel!] Reference

Lamp-light softened the shabbiness of the old room and shone pleasantly on dark wood and a great many faded books.    From Wordnik.com.  [Kenny] Reference

The shabbiness of the subject's clothing and his listless, shambling gait set him apart from the people around him.    From Wordnik.com.  [There's Something In A Sunday]

Most of the furniture had been good of its kind at one time, but it was now all reduced to a drab level of shabbiness.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Hermit of Far End] Reference

As Drew came up the man glanced at the scout, surveying his shabbiness, and his mouth took on the harsh line of a sneer.    From Wordnik.com.  [Ride Proud, Rebel!] Reference

The shabbiness of these attendants upon shabbiness, the poverty of these insolvent waiters upon insolvency, was a sight to see.    From Wordnik.com.  [Little Dorrit] Reference

In his early days, Wylie had no big-name clients, but he wanted to escape what he saw as the genteel shabbiness of the book trade.    From Wordnik.com.  [Andrew Wylie: 'I'm a books person. Yes, I have a Kindle. I used it for an hour and a half and put it in the closet'] Reference

And, once, there was a young man, a student by the cut and shabbiness of his clothes, who sat and stared at me with smoldering eyes.    From Wordnik.com.  [In the Garden of Iden] Reference

If you live a life of shabby gentility for too long, the shabbiness overwhelms gentility and your downward mobility becomes permanent.    From Wordnik.com.  [The middle class will get you, Mr Cameron] Reference

A constantly declining grade of shabbiness was the result of this, as the driver of the horses wore a coat and hat of the same style as his master, only less clean and new.    From Wordnik.com.  [Manners and Social Usages] Reference