Etymologically
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crappy

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 11:03. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • US: /ˈkɹæpi/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English crap + -y.[2][3][4][5][6] The OED compares the earlier shitty.[2] crap itself is of uncertain origin: the OED takes it as probably partly from Anglo-Norman crappe (“chaff”) and Middle French crape (“grime, filth”), perhaps ultimately Germanic and related to scrape,[2] while Etymonline traces it through Middle English crappe (“chaff”) and a French word for siftings to Medieval Latin crappa (“chaff”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Soiled with excrement: 1846, in the Swell's Night Guide.[2][6] Etymonline gives the same year for "worthless, inferior, disgusting",[5] and Dictionary.com calls it an Americanism of 1840–50.[7] The OED is unsure whether devilish crappy, in an 1839 poem full of puns, is the same word.[2]

Semantic evolution

The coarse literal sense "fouled with excrement" came first.[2][6] The figurative sense "inferior, worthless, very bad" is American: the OED's first record is from 1928, in William Carlos Williams,[2] and Green's Dictionary of Slang has krappy cigarettes in 1929.[6] In Glasgow in the 1920s it could mean "terrified".[6] From 1956 it was also used for feeling unwell or low,[2] and American students used it as an adverb, "badly", from the 1970s.[6]

Timeline

  • 1846 – soiled with excrement.[2][6]
  • 1928 – inferior, of poor quality, very bad.[2]
  • 1935 – Glasgow slang, terrified.[6]
  • 1956 – unwell, in low spirits.[2]
  • 1976 – adverb, badly.[6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. (slang) Of very poor quality; inferior or worthless: a crappy old laptop.[3][2][4]
  2. (slang) Unwell or in low spirits: I felt crappy all weekend.[2]
  3. (coarse slang) Soiled with excrement.[2][6]

Adverb

  1. (US slang) Badly; in a second-rate way.[6]

Word family

  • crappiness

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House