scrape
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: skrāp
ipa: /skɹeɪp/
rhymes: -eɪp
Forms: form: scrapes
form: scraping
form: scraped
form: scraped
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: She scraped the wooden plate with her fingernails.
text: That car often scrapes the shallowest of humps because of its low ground clearance.
synonyms: scuff
glosses: To draw (an object, especially a sharp or angular one), along (something) while exerting pressure.
examples: text: Scrape the chewing gum off with a knife.
glosses: To remove (something) by drawing an object along in this manner.
examples: text: She tripped on a rock and scraped her knee.
text: We went tip-toeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads.
ref: 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter II, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 8:
glosses: To injure or damage by rubbing across a surface.
examples: text: I scraped a pass in the exam.
glosses: To barely manage to achieve or attain.
examples: text: Just use whatever you can scrape together.
glosses: To collect or gather, especially without regard to the quality of what is chosen.
examples: text: They didn't provide an API, so I simply scraped their website.
text: The threat of the impending axe horrified Scott. He and his supporters hastily “scraped” as many Geocities^([sic]) pages as they could, creating a 641-gigabyte archive that initially circulated on file-sharing networks.
ref: 2011 April 19, Sumit Paul-Choudhury, “Digital legacy: The fate of your online soul”, in NewScientist:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To extract data by automated means from a format not intended to be machine-readable, such as a screenshot or a formatted web page.
examples: text: He scraped and saved until he became rich.
text: And he shall spend mine honour with his shame, As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold
ref: 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:
glosses: To occupy oneself with getting laboriously.
examples: text: Some people covered their ears when he started to scrape his violin.
text: At that time the Grand Duke had only two occupations. One was to scrape the violin, the other to train spaniels for hunting.
ref: 2010 January 5, Leslie Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages: A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire, Penguin, →ISBN:
glosses: To play awkwardly and inharmoniously on a violin or similar instrument.
examples: text: Yossarian went along in Milo Minderbinder's speeding M & M staff car to police headquarters to meet a swarthy, untidy police commissioner with a narrow black mustache and unbuttoned tunic who was fiddling with a stout woman with warts and two chins when they entered his office and who greeted Milo with warm surprise and bowed and scraped in obscene servility as though Milo were some elegant marquis.
ref: 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 425:
glosses: To draw back the right foot along the ground or floor when making a bow.
examples: text: When the debate was resumed, the tide ran so strongly against the accused that his friends were coughed and scraped down.
ref: 1841, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Warren Hastings:
glosses: 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: sense: draw an object along while exerting pressure
word: grate
sense: draw an object along while exerting pressure
word: scratch
sense: draw an object along while exerting pressure
word: compare drag
sense: injure by scraping
word: abrade
sense: injure by scraping
word: chafe
sense: injure by scraping
word: graze
Derived terms: bescrape
bow and scrape
outscrape
rake and scrape
scrape acquaintance
scrape along
scrape and bow
scrape at the bottom of the barrel
scrape by
scrape down
scrape-good
scrape off
scrape past
scrape-penny
scraper
scrape someone off the ceiling
scrape the barrel
scrape the bottom of the barrel
scrape through
scrape together
scrape up
screen-scrape