Scrape
Pronunciation
- enPR: skrÄp, IPA: /skreɪp/
- Rhymes: -eɪp
Origin
From Middle English scrapen, from Old Norse skrapa ("to scrape, scratch") and Old English scrapian ("to scrape, scratch"), both from Proto-Germanic *skrapÅnÄ…, *skrepanÄ… ("to scrape, scratch"), from Proto-Indo-European *skreb-, *skrep- ("to engrave"). Cognate with Dutch schrapen ("to scrape"), German schrappen ("to scrape"), Danish skrabe ("to scrape"), Icelandic skrapa ("to scrape"), Walloon screper ("to scrape"), Latin scribÅ ("dig with a pen, draw, write").
Full definition of scrape
Verb
- To draw an object, especially a sharp or angular one, along (something) while exerting pressure.Her fingernails scraped across the blackboard, making a shrill sound.Scrape the chewing gum off with a knife.
- To injure or damage by rubbing across a surface.She tripped on a rock and scraped her knee.
- To barely manage to achieve.I scraped a pass in the exam.
- To collect or gather, especially without regard to the quality of what is chosen.Just use whatever you can scrape together.
- (computing) To extract data by automated means from a format not intended to be machine-readable, such as a screenshot or a formatted web page.
- To occupy oneself with getting laboriously.He scraped and saved until he became rich.
- ShakespeareSpend their scraping fathers' gold.
- To play awkwardly and inharmoniously on a violin or similar instrument.
- To draw back the right foot along the ground or floor when making a bow.
- To express disapprobation of (a play, etc.) or to silence (a speaker) by drawing the feet back and forth upon the floor; usually with down.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Noun
scrape
(plural scrapes)- A broad, shallow injury left by scraping (rather than a cut or a scratch).He fell on the sidewalk and got a scrape on his knee.
- A fight, especially a fistfight without weapons.He got in a scrape with the school bully.
- An awkward set of circumstances.I'm in a bit of a scrape — I've no money to buy my wife a birthday present.
- (British, slang) A D and C or abortion; or, a miscarriage.
- 1972, in U.S. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Abuse of psychiatry for political repression in the Soviet Union. Hearing, Ninety-second Congress, second session, United States Government Printing Office, page 127,It’s quite possible, in view of the diagnosis ‘danger of miscarriage’, that they might drag me off, give me a scrape and then say that the miscarriage began itself.
- 1980, John Cobb, Babyshock: A Mother’s First Five Years, Hutchinson, page 232,In expert hands abortion nowadays is almost the same as having a scrape (D & C) and due to improved techniques such as suction termination, and improved lighter anaesthetic, most women feel no worse than having a tooth out.
- 1985, Beverley Raphael, The Anatomy of Bereavement: a handbook for the caring professions, Routledge, ISBN 0415094542, page 236,The loss is significant to the woman and will be stated as such by her. For her it is not “nothing,†“just a scrape,†or “not a life.†It is the beginning of a baby. Years later, she may recall it not just as a miscarriage but also as a baby that was lost.
- 1999, David Jenkins, Listening to Gynaecological Patients\ Problems, Springer, ISBN 1852331097, page 16,17.Have you had a scrape or curettage recently?
- A shallow depression used by ground birds as a nest; a nest scrape.
- 1948, in Behaviour: An International Journal of Comparative Ethology, E. J. Brill, page 103,We knew from U. Weidmann’s work (1956) that Black-headed Gulls could be prevented from laying by offering them eggs on the empty scrape veil before …
- 2000, Charles A. Taylor, The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, Kingfisher Publications, ISBN 0753452693, page 85,The plover lays its eggs in a scrape on the ground. ¶ … ¶ Birds’ nests can be little more than a scrape in the ground or a delicate structure of plant material, mud, and saliva.
- 2006, Les Beletsky, Birds of the World, Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 0801884292, page 95,Turkey females place their eggs in a shallow scrape in a hidden spot on the ground. Young are born ready to leave the nest and feed themselves (eating insects for their first few weeks).