(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.
Scratch
Definition:
(v. t.) To rub and tear or mark the surface of with something sharp or ragged; to scrape, roughen, or wound slightly by drawing something pointed or rough across, as the claws, the nails, a pin, or the like.
(v. t.) To write or draw hastily or awkwardly.
(v. t.) To cancel by drawing one or more lines through, as the name of a candidate upon a ballot, or of a horse in a list; hence, to erase; to efface; -- often with out.
(v. t.) To dig or excavate with the claws; as, some animals scratch holes, in which they burrow.
(v. i.) To use the claws or nails in tearing or in digging; to make scratches.
(v. i.) To score, not by skillful play but by some fortunate chance of the game.
(n.) A break in the surface of a thing made by scratching, or by rubbing with anything pointed or rough; a slight wound, mark, furrow, or incision.
(n.) A line across the prize ring; up to which boxers are brought when they join fight; hence, test, trial, or proof of courage; as, to bring to the scratch; to come up to the scratch.
(n.) Minute, but tender and troublesome, excoriations, covered with scabs, upon the heels of horses which have been used where it is very wet or muddy.
(n.) A kind of wig covering only a portion of the head.
(n.) A shot which scores by chance and not as intended by the player; a fluke.
(a.) Made, done, or happening by chance; arranged with little or no preparation; determined by circumstances; haphazard; as, a scratch team; a scratch crew for a boat race; a scratch shot in billiards.
Example Sentences:
(1) To test the hypothesis that EAA agonists are involved in transmission of nociceptive information in the spinal cord, we tested the effect of various opioid, sigma and phencyclidine compounds on the action of NMDA in the tail-flick, hot-plate and biting and scratching nociceptive tests.
(2) Some organization schemes concerning locomotor and scratching rhythmicity generators are considered, such as: two half-centres with reciprocal inhibitory connections and tonic excitatory influences on these half-centres: two half-centres with inhibitory-excitatory connections and tonic excitatory influences on one half-centre; ring structures consisting of more than two functional groups of neurons with excitatory and inhibitory connections between them.
(3) In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world's pre-eminent climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.
(4) The satisfaction derived from smoking depends not only on the pharmacological effects of nicotine but also the sensory stimulation from smoke inhalation, particularly the tracheal 'scratch'.
(5) The pathogenesis of the prolific mite population is unclear, but either a specific immunologic deficit or the inability to effectively eliminate the mites by scratching is a plausible possibility.
(6) Forty-three percent of dog bites, and 52% of cat bites-scratches were provoked, that is, happened while the victim was interacting with the animal.
(7) If the NHS was being created from scratch, primary and community care would be treated as one service.
(8) The timing of knee extensor activity within the hip cycle is different for each form of the scratch (Robertson et al., 1985); thus, the sign of the reset cannot be predicted from the timing of the stimulus relative to the knee extensor cycle.
(9) We report a patient with cat scratch disease who presented with multiple scattered nodular lesions on the legs.
(10) Application of APV to a midbody segment also reduced the magnitude of temporal summation in the scratch circuit in response to electrical stimuli delivered to the shell at 4- to 5-s intervals.
(11) Windshields, spectacles, contact lenses, lashes, an excessive tear meniscus, intraocular lens scratches, and posterior capsular opacification are possible causes that can be easily identified and treated.
(12) Ventral UVA pre-exposure did not appear to affect dorsal skin irritation as expressed by scratch marks.
(13) A rare vascular proliferation found as a skin lesion in patients suffering from the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and sometimes referred to as epithelioid angiomatosis is believed to be a manifestation of infection by the cat scratch bacillus or a related organism.
(14) We have made Afghanistan stronger by building up from scratch strong security forces.
(15) Immunoperoxidase staining with an antiserum raised against the cat-scratch disease bacillus stained these organisms in all patients.
(16) licking, scratching, grooming, head and limb movements), a reaction termed immobility.
(17) These data suggest that hindlimb scratching induced by 5-HT agonists may not be centrally mediated but rather may be mediated by a neuronal 5-HT1A receptor localized outside the blood-brain barrier.
(18) In contrast, after weaning they showed a significant increment in the duration of face-washing, head-washing, fur licking and body-scratching.
(19) A strong correlation was found between reduction in scratching and improvement in skin status.
(20) But screens already demonstrated by GT can withstand scratches from concrete.