scab

On this, his third album, he picks at the scabs of northern working-class life, and rails against a system that leaves families mired in bureaucratic neglect.

Another described her underarm skin as developing a pink rash which had "scabbed over".

The spots fill up with fluid and become blisters before crusting over to form scabs, which eventually drop off and clear up.

They picked at this particular South Africa scab with their verbal armoury of salty snipes when a tense chase began.

Further out, the oil fields of Kern County are like dinosaur relics — scabs on the surface of the earth.