1. To scrape or scratch with the hands or feet.
2. To struggle by or as if by scraping or scratching.
3. To proceed by clawing with the hands and feet; to scramble.
4. To make irregular, crooked, or unmeaning marks; to scribble; to scrawl.
transitive verb:
1. To mark with irregular lines or letters; to scribble on or over.
2. To make or obtain by scraping together hastily.
noun:
1. The act or an instance of scrabbling.
2. A scribble.
Mice kept me awake by scrabbling in the uncovered garbage can.
-- Edith Anderson, Love in Exile
Rather frantically I scrabble for the recollection of what exactly it does give me.
-- Robert McLiam Wilson, Ripley Bogle
In the huddle they'd talk about running "post patterns," and they'd scrabble plays in the grass.
-- George Plimpton, quoted in The Last Patrician, by Michael Knox Beran
Heard by Maidment but not seen, the dog, called Rosie, yawned, then pushed herself on to her feet, slipping about on the polished boards with a scrabble of paws.
-- William Trevor, Death in Summer
Scrabble derives from Dutch schrabbelen, from Middle Dutch, frequentative of schrabben, "to scrape; to scratch."
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