Scrubby describes vegetation that's small, stubby, and often scraggly-looking. Instead of tall trees with thick trunks, a scrubby landscape has bushes, shrubs, and twisted small trees that grow low to the ground. You might see scrubby plants in deserts, on windswept hillsides, or in places where the soil is poor and water is scarce.

Picture hiking through an area where nothing grows much taller than your shoulders: thorny bushes, gnarled juniper trees, and tough grasses that look weather-beaten. That's scrubby terrain. These plants are not struggling, they're simply adapted to harsh conditions. What looks scraggly to us is actually quite tough and resilient.

The word can also describe someone's appearance when they look messy or unkempt. If your older brother hasn't shaved in a few days, you might say he looks scrubby with that patchy stubble on his face. Similarly, if you've been working in the garden all afternoon and come inside covered in dirt with messy hair, someone might say you look a bit scrubby.