Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, also scuddy) filthy, repellent.

1959		H. Ellison ‘No Game for Children’ Gentleman Junkie (1961) 81: Time enough to let Mestman find his scuddy cat.
1964		Current Sl. (1967) I:4 5/1: Scuzzy, adj. Moldy, dirty.
1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 265: Even the names lost their magic. Instead of Bagmaster, Scuzzy and Hupe it was Luther Young [...] and Norman Scarlet III.
1970		(con. 1950s) H. Junker ‘The Fifties’ in Eisen Age of Rock 2 (1970) 102: When really hard up, he would even overlook her b.o., cooties, flat chest. (Scuzzy, grungy.).
1978		A. Maupin Tales of the City (1984) 216: The Toilet is just plain flat-out scuzzy.
1979		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Short Timers (1985) 57: Souvenir me one cute orphan, man, but make sure you get a dirty one, a really skuzzy one.
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 219: Keyes ate alone, or with clients so scuzzy he wanted to gag on the corned beef and rye.
1991		C. Fletcher Pure Cop 81: You’ve no idea how scuzzy those whores are. And filthy.
2004		A. Kleinzahler Cutty, One Rock (2005) 68: I’ve been in a hundred scuzzy joints like that.
2006		P. Carey Theft 269: I can’t [...] imagine the skuzzy deals those gifts were tied to.
2013		J. Stahl Bad Sex on Speed 57: Tonk talked into Fishoil’s scuzzy ear.
2017		V. McDermid Insidious Intent (2018) 163: ‘El’s dishy friend Mark, a million times more fab than scuzzy Steve!!!’’.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 289: A scuzzy mattress.

2. unkempt, down at heel, ragged.

[1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 88: You’ve had a peek at trainin’ camps, eh? Them rubbers is apt to be a scousy lot].
1969		PADS 51 16: Among the adjectives with this suffix are: foxy ‘attractive, graceful’ scuzzy ‘dirty’; groady ‘dirty and grubby’; wimpy ‘spineless’; skoady ‘objectionable’; and grungy ‘unclean’.
1972		New Yorker 1 Jan. 64: A lesson in how to get blue jeans properly scuzzy.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 175: I found his body outside Tijuana. In a scuzzy little shack.
1990		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Phantom Blooper 50: They walk [...] ankle-deep in red mud, grunts, skuzzy field Marines, slouching half-awake toward burlap-wrapped piss tubes.
2000		Indep. Rev. 7 Jan. 11: He does the night shift, patrolling the scuzzy, purgatorial streets like one damned to wander for eternity.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 32: His scuzzy lieutenants.