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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

scroll.

A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll.

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/skɹəʊl/Received-Pronunciation/skɹoʊl/General-American
  1. A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll.

  2. An ornament formed of undulations giving off spirals or sprays, usually suggestive of plant form. Roman architectural ornament is largely of some scroll pattern.

  3. Spirals or sprays in the shape of an actual plant.

  4. A mark or flourish added to a person's signature, intended to represent a seal, and in some States allowed as a substitute for a seal. [U.S.] Alexander Mansfield Burrill.

  5. The carved end of a violin, viola, cello or other stringed instrument, most commonly scroll-shaped but occasionally in the form of a human or animal head.

  6. A skew surface.

  7. A kind of sweet roll baked in a somewhat spiral shape.

    I ordered a glass of lemonade and a coffee scroll.
  8. The incremental movement of graphics on a screen, removing one portion to show the next.

  9. A spiral waterway placed round a turbine to regulate the flow.

  10. A turbinate bone.

  11. A rough draft of anything.

    obsolete
  12. The act of scrolling.

    I gave the terms and conditions a quick scroll before signing up to the website.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English scrowle, scrolle, from earlier scrowe, scrouwe (influenced by Middle English rolle), from Old French escroe, escrowe, escrouwe (“scroll, strip of parchment”), from Frankish *skrōda (“a shred”), from Proto-Germanic *skraudō, from *skrew- (“to cut; cutting tool”), extension of *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Doublet of shred and escrow.

verb/skɹəʊl/Received-Pronunciation/skɹoʊl/General-American
  1. To change one's view of data on a computer's display by moving in gradual increments, typically using an input device or touch screen.

    ambitransitive
    She scrolled the offending image out of view.
    She kept scrolling until she found the desired paragraph.
  2. To move in or out of view horizontally or vertically.

    intransitive
    The rising credits slowly scrolled off the screen.
  3. To continuously and aimlessly consume content on social media, especially on websites or apps with a scrolling feed, such as Instagram, TikTok, or X.

    intransitive
  4. To flood a chat system with numerous lines of text, causing legitimate messages to scroll out of view before they can be read.

    Internet · dated · intransitive
    Hey, stop scrolling!
  5. To draft; to write in rough outline.

    obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English scrowle, scrolle, from earlier scrowe, scrouwe (influenced by Middle English rolle), from Old French escroe, escrowe, escrouwe (“scroll, strip of parchment”), from Frankish *skrōda (“a shred”), from Proto-Germanic *skraudō, from *skrew- (“to cut; cutting tool”), extension of *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Doublet of shred and escrow.

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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.