scrape
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: skrāp
ipa: /skɹeɪp/
rhymes: -eɪp
Forms: form: scrapes
Etymology: From Middle English scrapen, from Old Norse skrapa (“to scrape, scratch”) and Old English scrapian (“to scrape, scratch”), both from Proto-Germanic *skrapōną, *skrepaną (“to scrape, scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European *skrebʰ- (“to engrave”).
Cognate with Dutch schrapen (“to scrape”), schrappen (“to strike through; to cancel; to scrap”), schrabben (“to scratch”), German schrappen (“to scrape”), Danish skrabe (“to scrape”), Icelandic skrapa (“to scrape”), Walloon screper (“to scrape”), Latin scribō (“dig with a pen, draw, write”).
Senses: examples: text: He fell on the sidewalk and got a scrape on his knee.
glosses: A broad, shallow injury left by scraping (rather than a cut or a scratch).
examples: text: For a long while, the only sounds in the café were the scrapes of forks against old white plates and occasional slurps from coffee mugs.
ref: 2000, Liz Ireland, The Sheriff and the E-mail Bride, Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin, →ISBN, page 174:
text: The scrape of the plate against the stone woke him, and he looked across to find Isocrates there, replacing the food.
ref: 2014, Tim Leach, chapter 3, in The King and the Slave, London: Atlantic Books, →ISBN, page 262:
text: I summon all my strength to make the shapes. Letter by painful letter we scrawl together. My mum follows each scrape of the pen with rapt anticipation.
ref: 2016, Danny Scheinmann, The Half Life of Joshua Jones, London: Unbound, →ISBN, page 262:
synonyms: scraping
glosses: The sound or action of something being scraped.
examples: text: A little solace came at tea time, in the shape of a double ration of bread—a whole, instead of a half-slice—with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter: […]
ref: 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter VII, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 107:
text: Or I could make a cup of tea and sit on the toilet with it – now we’re talking! And what about some toast and that last scrape of Marmite I hid…
ref: 2013, Alfie Crow, Rant, Moth Publishing, →ISBN, page 17:
synonyms: scraping
glosses: Something removed by being scraped; a thin layer of something such as butter on bread.
examples: text: He got in a scrape with the school bully.
glosses: A fight, especially a fistfight without weapons.
examples: text: I'm in a bit of a scrape — I've no money to buy my wife a birthday present.
text: Stuart made us all laugh - his mischievous stories were told throughout his career and in later days featured some very senior politicians and railway managers. He certainly got into many scrapes over the years.
ref: 2020 December 2, “A life remembered: Stuart Baker”, in Rail, page 61:
glosses: An awkward set of circumstances.
examples: text: 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.
text: 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.
ref: 1980, John Cobb, Babyshock: A Mother’s First Five Years, Hutchinson, page 232:
text: 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.
ref: 1985, Beverley Raphael, The Anatomy of Bereavement: a handbook for the caring professions, Routledge,, →ISBN, page 236:
text: 17.Have you had a scrape or curettage recently?
ref: 1999, David Jenkins, Listening to Gynaecological Patients\ Problems, Springer,, →ISBN, page 16:
glosses: A D and C or abortion; or, a miscarriage.
examples: text: 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 […]
ref: 1948, Behaviour: An International Journal of Comparative Ethology, E. J. Brill, page 103:
text: 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.
ref: 2000, Charles A. Taylor, The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, Kingfisher Publications,, →ISBN, page 85:
text: 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).
ref: 2006, Les Beletsky, Birds of the World, Johns Hopkins University Press,, →ISBN, page 95:
glosses: A shallow depression used by ground birds as a nest; a nest scrape.
examples: text: In between rounds, he dug a scrape for himself with his entrenching tool.
ref: 2014, Harry Turtledove, Hitler's War:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: A shallow pit dug as a hideout.
examples: text: A'm goin to the barber's for a scrape.
ref: 1945, Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, page 66:
glosses: A shave.
glosses: Cheap butter.
examples: text: “Got a nice bit of haddock for tonight. Thought I might do it with a poached egg, bit of pepper, bread and scrape”
ref: 2018 February 11, Colin Dexter, Russell Lewis, 31:48 from the start, in Endeavour(Cartouche), season 5, episode 2 (TV series), spoken by DS Jim Strange (Sean Rigby):
glosses: Butter laid on bread in the thinnest possible manner, as though laid on and scraped off again.
examples: text: Alternative form: scarpe
text: 16. Azure, a Scrape Argent. 17. Gules, a Battune Argent.
ref: 1730, Richard Blome, The Art of Heraldry, page 67:
text: Azure, a Scrape Or.
ref: 1810, Encyclopædia Britannica: Or, A Dictionary of Arts and Science, Compiled Upon a New Plan, page 406:
text: Argent, a scrape purpure.
ref: 1894, Sir Francis James Grant, The Manual of Heraldry: Being a Concise Description of the Several Terms Used, and Containing a Dictionary of Every Designation in the Science, page 21:
text: (A variant blazon would be: Argent, three scrapes enhanced gules.)
ref: 1961, Jack Adolphe Reynolds, Heraldry and You: Modern Heraldic Usage in America, Edinburgh; New York : Nelson:
topics: government
heraldry
hobbies
lifestyle
monarchy
nobility
politics
coordinate_terms: baton
glosses: A diminutive of the bend (especially of the bend sinister) which is half its width.
glosses: An intermittent shallow pond in a wetland or floodplain, often artificially created to attract birds.
Synonyms: sense: injury
word: abrasion
sense: injury
word: graze
sense: fight
word: altercation
sense: fight
word: brawl
sense: fight
word: fistfight
sense: fight
word: fight
sense: fight
word: fisticuffs
sense: fight
word: punch-up
sense: fight
word: scuffle
sense: awkward set of circumstances
word: bind
sense: awkward set of circumstances
word: fix
sense: awkward set of circumstances
word: mess
sense: awkward set of circumstances
word: pickle
Derived terms: bread and scrape
pick scrape