scrattle

scrattle

English

Verb

scrattle (third-person singular simple present scrattles, present participle scrattling, simple past and past participle scrattled)

1. To scratch.
   • 1738, The London Magazine, rev. Mr. Darwall, to Mr. George Bickham, "On the First Volume of his Musical Entertainer"; page 303

     But if I'm duly sensible of this,

     And if I really fear to do amiss,

     How, George, how (in the name of wonder!) then,

     Dares my poor, puny, scurvy, scrattling pen

     Presume thy neat performances to trace,

     And, with mean words, thy beauteous works debase

2. To make shift, to manage to get along.
   • 2010, Robert Malcolmson, Patricia Malcolmson, Nella Last in the 1950s: Further diaries of Housewife, 49

     My husband says “What's the good of scrattling and saving, Edna, when in two–three years we might all be blown up by an atom bomb?

3. (intransitive, Britain, dialectal) To scuttle.

Anagrams

• Scarlett, clatters