What's the difference between rummage and scrabble?

Rummage


Definition:

  • (n.) A place or room for the stowage of cargo in a ship; also, the act of stowing cargo; the pulling and moving about of packages incident to close stowage; -- formerly written romage.
  • (n.) A searching carefully by looking into every corner, and by turning things over.
  • (v. t.) To make room in, as a ship, for the cargo; to move about, as packages, ballast, so as to permit close stowage; to stow closely; to pack; -- formerly written roomage, and romage.
  • (v. t.) To search or examine thoroughly by looking into every corner, and turning over or removing goods or other things; to examine, as a book, carefully, turning over leaf after leaf.
  • (v. i.) To search a place narrowly.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Blood gutters brightly against his green gown, yet the man doesn't shudder or stagger or sink but trudges towards them on those tree-trunk legs and rummages around, reaches at their feet and cops hold of his head and hoists it high, and strides to his steed, snatches the bridle, steps into the stirrup and swings into the saddle still gripping his head by a handful of hair.
  • (2) The song ended on an emotional warble, then Nicolas rummaged in a drawer and handed me a small circle of cloth.
  • (3) I was on my way to one of those exclusive parties when I saw Mom from the taxi window; she was on the sidewalk rummaging through the trash.
  • (4) Port Gaverne , a little cove near Port Isaac always described as "quaint", is a good place to watch seals (and occasional basking sharks, dolphins and porpoises), go fishing or rummage in rock pools.
  • (5) When he was at Heinemann in the 1980s, he was rummaging through unsolicited manuscripts and came across Roddy Doyle's The Commitments and the first chapter of Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent.
  • (6) I'd come into his flat and rummage around in his private mail.
  • (7) Rummage boxes, sensory gardens and music sessions are prominent examples of tools used in our programme to help residents recall thoughts and experiences of their lives prior to developing dementia.
  • (8) You’ve gone through the most physically demanding and painful hours of your life, then when you finally get to hold your baby, your sense of euphoria is knocked out of you and there are suddenly people quite literally rummaging inside your body.
  • (9) Umunna won over an audience of business leaders when he produced his late father’s IoD membership card, that he found after rummaging through a box kept by his mother.
  • (10) The Knowledge has rummaged furiously through its annals, but just can't beat that.
  • (11) We end our conversation with his party's rum assortment of allies in the European parliament , and another chance to rummage through more arcane rightwing parties that do their thing in Brussels: among them, Helsinki's own True Finns, and the United Poland party.
  • (12) Born the youngest of five children into a working-class family in Lambeth, south London, he had had his first brushes with the law as a teenager during the second world war, when he would rummage through bombed-out buildings and help himself to what he found.
  • (13) The story begins with his colonial childhood in Kenya and Nyasaland (now Malawi), and is full of dusty anecdotes of our young hero rummaging without a care in the great African outdoors.
  • (14) In the background, John Terry's camp succeeded in planting a series of stories and photos that portrayed him as a happy family man, taking his wife out to the theatre and showing her how to fish while the tabloids rummaged in Perroncel's family history – her parents' divorce, her father's suicide, her supposed lack of money as a child (implying a current obsession).
  • (15) For more classic knowledge, click here MORE VIOLENT TESTIMONIALS Last week , rummaging through the Knowledge archive, Wayne Ziants came across a question about trouble at testimonials and felt moved to remind us of the hi-jinks at Alan Cork's benefit match in Plough Lane on 16 May 1988.
  • (16) "We have entered a new world but, as the court today recognised, our old values still apply and limit the government's ability to rummage through the intimate details of our private lives," Shapiro said in a statement.
  • (17) I hastily write a response in the affirmative, then rummage through my desk for a sheet of stamps, grab my cap and coat, and drop the letter into the mailbox.
  • (18) I would go to the library, or get books at rummage sales.
  • (19) I rummage through my pockets for the 1.5 birr (5p) fare as passengers clamber on and off at regular intervals before we reach the Bole bridge bus terminal.
  • (20) Get your reporter to STOP rummaging thru belongings at #mH17 crash site.

Scrabble


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To scrape, paw, or scratch with the hands; to proceed by clawing with the hands and feet; to scramble; as, to scrabble up a cliff or a tree.
  • (v. t.) To make irregular, crooked, or unmeaning marks; to scribble; to scrawl.
  • (v. t.) To mark with irregular lines or letters; to scribble; as, to scrabble paper.
  • (n.) The act of scrabbling; a moving upon the hands and knees; a scramble; also, a scribble.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Even a Scrabble board is used as a weapon in our show.
  • (2) But I'm starting with the job that I can do something about right now – scrabbling around on the floor, picking up three-inch nails and cigarette butts so that the new four-year-olds will have somewhere safe to play at break.
  • (3) While all this is going on, the new Syriza-led government of cash-starved Greece will be scrabbling for every last cent to repay the next €450m (£330m) instalment of the country’s loan from the IMF.
  • (4) People who never dreamed that one day they would not be able to pay their electricity bill, or feed their children properly.” As it has scrabbled for every last cent to satisfy its creditors and ward off bankruptcy, Greece’s government has taken cash wherever it could – local authorities, healthcare, pensions, social services have all been tapped.
  • (5) "I think it does feel as if everybody is still scrabbling trying to work out which model works best but it is not as wild as it was," she said.
  • (6) A rise in government spending to cope with higher social security bills, combined with a fall in tax receipts, has left the Treasury scrabbling to meet its borrowing target for the end of the year.
  • (7) Our Scrabble board had Velcro on the back, as did each alphabet piece.
  • (8) The new movie marks a partial return to the thematic territory of Rosetta , which concerned a teenage girl scrabbling around for menial jobs.
  • (9) Valdés was so unprepared after De Gea had strained his hamstring that the game was delayed by almost three minutes as he scrabbled to get his kit ready.
  • (10) Meanwhile, there is the unseemly scrabble, documented by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, for the very wealthiest to hold on to those increasingly scarce stable professions that guarantee a large income and access to social goods at the very top of society ( theguardian.com , 26 July).
  • (11) Spain is scrabbling to meet a deficit target of 3.7% by the end of the financial year while the UK's is likely to still be above 6%.
  • (12) They shot from the balcony.” “Everyone scrabbled to the ground.
  • (13) That is the reason I was scrabbling in the playground, picking up nails.
  • (14) If Labour scrapes in via a Lib Dem coalition, as looks likely, the Lib Dems will be scrabbling around to appoint someone female.
  • (15) The fact that researchers have concluded that there is “ no benefit to attending a grammar school for high-attaining pupils ” makes the unedifying scrabble even more sad.
  • (16) He continued to live off his notoriety, posing for photographs with tourists in exchange for money, selling souvenir T-shirts that commemorated his escapes, scrabbling for crumbs from the media table and charging tourists £40 for a barbecue at his house.
  • (17) Why do we have to scrabble around for spare cash to counteract cartoonishly unjust policies such as the bedroom tax that attempt to balance Britain’s books at the expense of predominantly poor disabled people, they wonder.
  • (18) Perhaps, more importantly, the success of the iPhone has also made Apple massively influential in the competitive mobile market, with its rivals scrabbling to build their own phones that mimic the iPhone's touch-sensitive screen, downloadable applications and user-friendly web browsing.
  • (19) Users can now give gifts to friends, post free classified advertisements and even develop their own applications - graffiti and Scrabble are particularly popular.
  • (20) And, like Steve, their housing benefit will be docked, so they will be left scrabbling just to make the rent and keep a roof above their heads.