scrawl.
Irregular, poor handwriting; especially, such writing that is illegible.
Meaning & usage
Irregular, poor handwriting; especially, such writing that is illegible.
A hastily or carelessly written note etc.
Writing that lacks literary merit.
A broken branch of a tree.
The young of the dog-crab.
Where this word comes from
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.
To write something hastily or illegibly.
She scrawled the main points onto her notepad.
To write in an irregular or illegible manner.
To write unskilfully and inelegantly.
Where this word comes from
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.
To creep; crawl; to move slowly, with difficulty, fearfully, or stealthily.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English scraulen (“to crawl”), itself an alteration of crawlen (“to crawl”). More at crawl.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.