2684: Feeling Lousy? Apr 26, 2024

 Feeling lousy? You ought to ask someone to comb through your hair. These days the dominant use of the word ‘lousy’ is “in poor condition”, often relating to ill-health or to something that is disappointing. The original sense of this word is “lice-infested”, but since the the singular form ‘louse’ is not as common, people will not as readily make that association as perhaps they might about describing someone as ‘mousy’, though also that word is more phonetically similar, with ‘louse’ being pronounced with an [s], and ‘lousy’ usually with a [z].