scumball

comparative more scumball · superlative most scumball

1. slangSleazy, disreputable, or despicable.

   Another fifty grand for Shuttles; the scumball business was booming.

   2006, Jack Kerley, A Garden of Vipers, Dutton, →ISBN, page 288

   2 more examples

   "This kid, your scumball client, also has a rap sheet six pages long. He shot a sixteen-year-old in the back last year and got sixty days on a piss-ass weapons violation because the victim wouldn't testify. […]

   1996, Barbara Parker, Blood Relations, Signet, published 1997, →ISBN, page 315

   "I can't help it if your uncle and his scumball friends keep crawling out from under every rock that gets turned over in this town."

   1999, Lynn Emery, After All, Arabesque Books, →ISBN, page 136

plural scumballs

1. slangA sleazy, disreputable, or despicable person; a lowlife.

   "Answer me. How would you feel if I was the one who might get knifed in the gullet by some scumball?"

   2002, Iris Johansen, Body of Lies, Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 158

   2 more examples

   Recently widowed and still grieving over the loss of her husband, his mother had been an easy mark for a scumball like Jacob. Playing on her weakened emotional state, within two months Jacob had sweet-talked her into marrying him.

   2006, Peggy Moreland, The Texan's Convenient Marriage, Harlequin, →ISBN, pages 33–34

   […] He thinks 'cause he's stronger he can beat up a woman, strip her of everything she's got, and walk away. And on top of it he doesn't pay his damn hotel bill. That's a man for you — a real scumball."

   2007, Haruki Murakami, After Dark (trans. Jay Rubin), Vintage International (2007; original Japanese novel published 2004), page 84

   Synonyms: scumbag, sleazebag, sleazeball