scrawl

English

Etymology 1

Possibly from Middle English scraulen (“to spread out one's limbs; sprawl”), itself an alteration of spraulen (“to sprawl”) or craulen, crawlen (“to crawl”).

Alternatively, from scrall, a contraction of scrabble.

Noun

scrawl (countable and uncountable, plural scrawls)

  1. Irregular, possibly illegible handwriting.
  2. A hastily or carelessly written note etc.
  3. Writing that lacks literary merit.
  4. (uncommon) A broken branch of a tree.
  5. (uncommon) The young of the dog-crab.
Translations

Verb

scrawl (third-person singular simple present scrawls, present participle scrawling, simple past and past participle scrawled)

  1. (transitive) To write something hastily or illegibly.
  2. (intransitive) To write in an irregular or illegible manner.
  3. (intransitive) To write unskilfully and inelegantly.
    • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton
      Though with a golden pen you scrawl.
Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English scraulen (“to crawl”), itself an alteration of crawlen (“to crawl”). More at crawl.

Verb

scrawl (third-person singular simple present scrawls, present participle scrawling, simple past and past participle scrawled)

  1. To creep; crawl; (by extension) to swarm with crawling things
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Latimer to this entry?)

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for scrawl in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams
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