Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) mean, malicious, nasty.

1870		Cythera’s Hymnal 26: The Lord at length took pity, and said he, It’s rather shitty / To be calling beasts all nasty sorts of names, names, names.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 115: [T]hat shitty cunt of a woman.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 130: If the runt is shitty [...] I’ll bury my foot in her ass.
1973		D. Goines Street Players 11: Is a little bit of money really making you get shitty?
1973		T. Lewis Billy Rags [ebook] Everyone began to look shitty and there was no doubt about it, the whole scene was very embarrassing.
1974		(con. 1930s) I. Agnew Loner 99: The bastards got real shitty.
1981		(con. 1963) P. Conroy Lords of Discipline 132: I plan to have the shittiest goddam attitude in the United States.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 133: I thought it was hilarious, a real grouse joke. I had a good laugh but they were quite shitty on me for a week or so.
1986		R. Campbell In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 45: Shitty, ain’t it? A man can’t even buy a bowl of soup for a friend anymore.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 64: Then he’s, like, all shitty and he goes, ‘I only slept with ya ’cause ya needed it’.
2000		Eminem ‘Stan’ 🎵 That’s pretty shitty man – you’re like his fuckin idol.
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] ‘I’m not in the slightest bit interested in you. Or your shitty mates. You listening?’.
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 101: This whiny shitty nasty weepy man who isn’t my dad takes my dad over.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 82: [A]ll the shitty towns [...] graded by how much they hated Catholics.
2019		N. Walker Cherry 53: The barmaid wasn’t shitty to him.
2023		F. Bill Back to the Dirt 239: ‘I always defended you, even when you got shitty’.

2. covered in excrement; generally filthy.

1922		‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 122: Up, down: make the clinkers rattle round your shitty arse-holes.
1935		in A.W. Read Lexical Evidence 75: This Shithouse stinks like shit Because it is so shitty .
1946		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 79: The asshole was shitty.
1956		‘Count P. Vicarion’ Bawdy Ballads Intro.: I can remember no more of her song than its lilting refrain: ‘Oh how did Edith ever / Get so shitty round the titty?’.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 55: I’m gonna be unloading shitty diapers at forty years old.
1980		Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 75: Who changed your shitty napkins when you were a kid? I bet it wasn’t your old man.
1981		A. Weller Day of the Dog 138: Trust Jamie to give him a shitty job when the big bastard is in a shitty mood, thinks Doug. The underneath of the shed is knee-deep in dried sheep droppings.
1986		S. King It (1987) 21: Finally Bill said one of the forbidden words – he accused George of being a big brown shitty a-hole.
1987		(con. 1930s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 129: You could not escape the sight of nappy changes and shitty sheets.
1993		R. Shell Iced 34: I know my clothes are shitty.
1999		‘Master Pimp’ Pimp’s Rap 161: Nigger, I was dressing and ressing when you were wearing shitty diapers.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 225: Foldin the bog roll over the shitty part after yuv wiped once so you can av another clean surface.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 33: He held up the bundle and opened the shitty package.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 74: In the bedroom you’ve goat a shitey divan.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] I’m in the front seat of a shitty car sucking off a big sloppy bald guy.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 95: [S]he was known [...] as Shitty [...] because she was constantly using her own feces to hurl and to write on prison walls and to adorn herself.

3. unpleasant, disgusting; mediocre, second-rate.

1926		E. Hemingway letter 7 Sept. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 216: I [...] sent the Alpine Idyll to the New Masses which is the most puerile and shitty house organ I’ve ever seen.
1929		E. Hemingway letter 18 July in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 300: I’m glad as hell you liked the start of the book – if it seems to go shitty later on don’t despair because that is emasculation by the magazine authorities.
1932		(con. 1917–19) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 364: Wherever you are the seaman gets the s––y end of the stick.
c.1935		‘She Will Be Coming Around the Mountain’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 51: This is a shitty way to frig.
1936		J.T. Farrell World I Never Made 477: ‘It was just a damn shitty accident,’ Bill griped.
1941		P. Larkin letter 23 June in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 14: I am merely starting a letter to you, having 5 minutes ago stamped out of the Playhouse & a shitty play.
1949		H. Miller Sexus (1969) 131: The shittiest dregs of humanity that ever stood on two legs.
1955		Kerouac letter 15 Apr. in Charters I (1995) 471: Please don’t go thinking ‘Here’s old shittypants Kerouac again coming on with the buddy buddy talk’.
1958		C. Lee diary 22 Mar. in Eight Bells & Top Masts (2001) 91: He likes [apprenctices] to stay out on the wing of the bridge, especially if the weather’s shitty.
1964		A. Baraka Slave in Three Negro Plays (1969) Act I: I mean if this shitty town is being flattened ... let it. It needs it.
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 253: Same shitty coat. She wears it all winter.
1966		‘Tom Pendleton’ Iron Orchard (1967) 136: That man is the shitiest excuse for a human being I ever run up against.
1968		L. Wolf Voices from the Love Generation 65: Then I would do the final paper, which would be longer but shittier.
1972		(con. 1950s) D. Goines Whoreson 170: Your brother is the reason that my trap money is going to be shitty?
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 13: We brought you down from shitty Queensland.
1986		L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 10: You stare at a couple of hundred metres of shitty-ass marsh.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 273: I apologize for all the shitty things I’ve been saying about you.
1991		W.T. Vollmann Whores for Gloria 34: It was very hot. On the sidewalk, a shitty kleenex did not stir.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] Stop and tell him thanks for giving you shitty directions.
1998		Hip-Hop Connection Dec. 8: The shitty album by their second-rate crew.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 49: Finally, we adjourn for coffee. Shitey wee fuckin buscuits, that’s all they give us.
1999		Guardian Guide 14–20 Aug. 26: When you do get toothache it reminds you how shitty it must have been to have lived a couple of hundred years ago.
2001		N. Griffiths Sheepshagger 1: Fuckin millions-a people have a shitey upbringing and they don’t turn into killers.
2006		P. Carey Theft 3: A lot of shitty stuff did happen.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 6: Junkies this far gone create their own shitty climate.
2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] It was a real shitty room. An honest to God heap. Shitty paintjob, shitty bed, shitty carpet, shitty curtains, shitty TV, shitty furniture, shitty everything.
2013		C. Dundas ‘Rightful King of Wrestling’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] ‘How long you think we are going to do this? Drive our shitty car to a shitty little town for a shitty little wrestling show?’.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 7: [S]inging in hotel lobbies during shitty little arts festivals.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 174: Never mind shitey hurricans, ah’ll tell ye whae the real cunts are.
2016		D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] Quinlivan was talking [...] about transactions involving tens of thousands of pounds on a shitty line sent out from a [...] dusty Australian building site.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 30: Motorways and shitty high flats. The New Glasgow.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 221: Miles away from shitey Glasgow.
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘Too shitty for farming, too shitty for a national park, too shitty for logging. Just shitty all round’.
2020		D. Winslow ‘The San Diego Zoo’ in Broken 119: If you’re shitty parents with young children still up at this hour [etc].
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 147: ‘She was a shitty mother, you’re better off’.
2021		A. Parks April Dead 1: ‘Not sure blowing up a shitey rented flat in Glasgow is the best way of striking at the British Establishment’.
2024		D. Swierczynski California Bear 51: ‘Got a plate for you to run off some shitty Honda Accord’.

4. (US) tedious, futile; emotional stressful.

1977		E. Bunker Animal Factory 15: This is shitty – except that I can visit twice a week.
2016		Eve. Standard (London) 13 May 5/15: Her father died of cancer [...] She’s had a really shitty time.
2021		‘Aidan Truhen’ Seven Demons 85: People who die [...] just stop talking to you and stop doing anything else and it’s really shitty if you like them because there is not them anymore.

5. (US) unwell, ill.

1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 195: Shitty Have a minor illness, feel sick.
1974		G.V. Higgins Cogan’s Trade (1975) 54: He was inna hospital over two and a half weeks [...] He’s around, but he look shitty.

6. depressed, guilty.

1997

G.V. Higgins Change of Gravity [ebook] If they’d drug you enough — morphine, maybe some of that heroin [...] make you happy no matter how shitty you felt.

7. (Aus.) bad-tempered.

1981		A. Weller Day of the Dog 138: Trust Jamie to give him a shitty job when the big bastard is in a shitty mood, thinks Doug. The underneath of the shed is knee-deep in dried sheep droppings.
1993		C. Hiaasen Strip Tease 63: He has a very shitty opinion of politicians.
1996		Penguin Bk of More Aus. Jokes 289: Please excuse him. He’s got a bit shitty because he’s going to the dentist this afternoon.
2007		S. Maloney Sucked In 10: ‘Jesus, Col, you want me to do a fucking impression?’ ‘Just asking. No need to get shitty’.

8. (US) dangerous.

1979

E. Torres After Hours 108: Never stared at the shitty end of a knife or gun.

9. incompetent.

1977		(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 145: You’re good at sneaking a priest out of a whorehouse [...] What you’re shitty at is Mystery Clues.
1986		R.G. Barrett Godson 20: ‘Do you need some of my money to help balance your shitty budget?’.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 10: My union is shitty. He urges me to join his.