Find the word definition

Crossword clues for scrawl

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
scrawl
I.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
name
▪ The girl behind the beauty-counter at Lewis's had scrawled her name in pencil on the window frame.
▪ Beneath the tick and scrawl that made her name the paper was lightly wrinkled.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Jim scrawled his signature across the bottom of the page.
▪ Someone had scrawled a strange symbol on the wall above the bed.
▪ Three students were excluded for scrawling graffiti on a school wall.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ At the head of each arrow, he scrawled further appreciation.
▪ Names scrawled inside the boat matched those of migrants en route to join family members in Britain who had never arrived.
▪ Romanov scrawled his signature between the two X's with the proffered gold pen.
▪ She tried to make sense of the dozens of scrawled, mostly incoherent pages Vilma sent in return.
▪ The tiny pens, scrawling in palsied traces on endless white ribbons of paper, slowly ground to a halt.
▪ The windows cowered behind a wire grill and were dotted with advertisements scrawled out on postcards.
▪ With a sinking heart I noticed that he was holding up a piece of torn cardboard with my name scrawled on it.
II.noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ I couldn't read the doctor's scrawl.
▪ I kept a diary then -- pages and pages of tiny scrawl.
▪ The note was written in Gwen's childish scrawl.
▪ What does it say? I can't read your scrawl!
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ It is covered with a hasty scrawl in Darwin's hand.
▪ Nifty handwriting recognition algorithms can translate the user's scrawls into print - and can shrink them to fit if necessary.
▪ One looked safe enough, bearing, as it did, Mr Yarrow's distinctive scrawl.
▪ The top page was covered in scrawls and doodles.
▪ The wall was covered with scrawls done with a bit of pencil lead.
▪ You end up with walls lined with sheets of paper, or blackboards covered with artistic scrawl.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Scrawl

Scrawl \Scrawl\ (skr[add]l), n. Unskillful or inelegant writing; that which is unskillfully or inelegantly written.

The left hand will make such a scrawl, that it will not be legible.
--Arbuthnot.

You bid me write no more than a scrawl to you.
--Gray.

Scrawl

Scrawl \Scrawl\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Scrawled; p. pr. & vb. n. Scrawling.] [Probably corrupted from scrabble.] To draw or mark awkwardly and irregularly; to write hastily and carelessly; to scratch; to scribble; as, to scrawl a letter.

His name, scrawled by himself.
--Macaulay.

Scrawl

Scrawl \Scrawl\, v. i. To write unskillfully and inelegantly.

Though with a golden pen you scrawl.
--Swift.

Scrawl

Scrawl \Scrawl\, v. i. See Crawl. [Obs.]
--Latimer.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
scrawl

1610s, "write or draw untidily," of uncertain origin, perhaps from Middle English scrawlen "spread out the limbs, sprawl" (early 15c.), which possibly is an alteration of sprawlen (see sprawl (v.)) or crawl (v.). Related: Scrawled; scrawling. The noun is recorded from 1690s, from the verb. Meaning "bad handwriting" is from 1710.

Wiktionary
scrawl

Etymology 1 n. 1 An irregular, possibly illegible handwriting. 2 A hastily, or carelessly written note etc. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To write something hastily or illegibly. 2 (context intransitive English) To write in an irregular or illegible manner. 3 (context intransitive English) To write unskilfully and inelegantly. Etymology 2

vb. (obsolete form of crawl English)

WordNet
scrawl
  1. n. poor handwriting [syn: scribble, scratch, cacography]

  2. v. write carelessly [syn: scribble]

Wikipedia
Scrawl

Scrawl is an American musical trio based in Columbus, Ohio, United States.

Scrawl (film)

Scrawl is a 2015 British horror film directed by Peter Hearn and produced by Annabelle Le Gresley and Peter Hearn. It stars Mark Forester Evans, Daisy Ridley, Nathalie Pownall and Elizabeth Boag. In October 2015, Scrawl played a longer cut at the Fright Night Film Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. Subsequent film festivals in 2015 have shown a shorter cut, with more festivals lined up for 2016.

Usage examples of "scrawl".

His amanuensis found it impossible to keep up with him, and therefore profited by a hint from one of us, and instead of writing, merely moved his pen rapidly over the paper, scrawling all sorts of ragged lines and figures to resemble writing!

As far as the eye could reach the bushveld rolled its scrub like the scrawled foliage a child draws on a slate, with here and there a baobab swimming unsteadily in the glare.

Monte Cristo two weeks later, Verne sulked in the carriage, staring at the piles of paper on which Dumas had scrawled his comments.

I opened it, but finding it covered with an illegible scrawl I gave it him back, telling him to read it himself.

And winter was defeated, and the snowmelt roared down the valleys, and the Kneck scrawled its random wiggles across the flat silt of the valley.

She finished scrawling on the notepaper and tore the top sheet off from the soccer-patterned pada Christmas gift from one of her pupils.

To The Shadow, the mental rightening of that scrawl was not too difficult a task.

Dimly, Suttle was beginning to put it all together: the newly scrawled name on the speakerphone downstairs, the open door, the carefully recreated tableau in the bedroom, the hostage offered up and waiting, the shiny blades beside the bed, the open invitation to a spot of help-yourself revenge.

He had looked out at the quizzical faces, listened to the frantic scrawling of the panicking students, and realized that with a mind that ran and tripped and hurled itself down the corridors of theory in anarchic fashion, he could learn himself, in haphazard lurches, but he could not impart the understanding he so loved.

I made it a rule to read everything that has been written respecting Napoleon, and I have had to decipher many of his autograph documents, though no longer so familiar with his scrawl as formerly.

He read scrawled, blotty penmanship: Dear Tretter: This is my last warning.

Van Patten asks, absently studying the question scrawled on his napkin.

The only exception is a portrait of one of the Scarrognini family which is seen on the right-hand wall above the door, the fact of the portraiture being attested by a barbarous scrawl upon the fresco itself.

Sincerely, Leslie Slote William Tuttle could readily see in the enclosed memorandum, scrawled on legal-length yellow sheets, the exasperated outpouring of a subordinate quitting his job in anger.

The three of them ransacked the room, but no small, round box with the Campion name scrawled on it in elegant pink script could be found.