scrape

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”).

• enPR: skrāp, IPA^(key): /skɹeɪp/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪp

scrape (third-person singular simple present scrapes, present participle scraping, simple past and past participle scraped)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To draw (an object, especially a sharp or angular one), along (something) while exerting pressure.

   She scraped the wooden plate with her fingernails.

   That car often scrapes the shallowest of humps because of its low ground clearance.

2. (transitive) To remove (something) by drawing an object along in this manner.

   Scrape the chewing gum off with a knife.

3. (transitive) To injure or damage by rubbing across a surface.

   She tripped on a rock and scraped her knee.

   • 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:

     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.

4. (transitive) To barely manage to achieve.

   I scraped a pass in the exam.

5. (transitive) To collect or gather, especially without regard to the quality of what is chosen.

   Just use whatever you can scrape together.

6. (computing, transitive) To extract data by automated means from a format not intended to be machine-readable, such as a screenshot or a formatted web page.

   They didn't provide an API, so I simply scraped their website.

   • 2011 April 19, Sumit Paul-Choudhury, “Digital legacy: The fate of your online soul”, in NewScientist‎^[1]:

     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.

7. (intransitive) To occupy oneself with getting laboriously.

   He scraped and saved until he became rich.

   • 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]:

     And he shall spend mine honour with his shame, As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold

8. (transitive, intransitive) To play awkwardly and inharmoniously on a violin or similar instrument.

   Some people covered their ears when he started to scrape his violin.

   • 2010 January 5, Leslie Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages: A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire, Penguin, →ISBN:

     At that time the Grand Duke had only two occupations. One was to scrape the violin, the other to train spaniels for hunting.

9. (intransitive) To draw back the right foot along the ground or floor when making a bow.
   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 425:

     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.

10. 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.
    • 1841, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Warren Hastings:

      When the debate was resumed, the tide ran so strongly against the accused that his friends were coughed and scraped down.

• (draw an object along while exerting pressure): grate, scratch; compare drag
• (injure by scraping): abrade, chafe, graze

scrape (countable and uncountable, plural scrapes)

1. A broad, shallow injury left by scraping (rather than a cut or a scratch).

   He fell on the sidewalk and got a scrape on his knee.

2. The sound or action of something being scraped.

   Synonym: scraping

   • 2000, Liz Ireland, The Sheriff and the E-mail Bride, Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin, →ISBN, page 174:

     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.

   • 2014, Tim Leach, chapter 3, in The King and the Slave, London: Atlantic Books, →ISBN, page 262:

     The scrape of the plate against the stone woke him, and he looked across to find Isocrates there, replacing the food.

   • 2016, Danny Scheinmann, The Half Life of Joshua Jones, London: Unbound, →ISBN, page 262:

     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.

3. Something removed by being scraped; a thin layer of something such as butter on bread.

   Synonym: scraping

   • 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:

     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: […]

   • 2013, Alfie Crow, Rant, Moth Publishing, →ISBN, page 17:

     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…

4. (slang) A fight, especially a fistfight without weapons.

   He got in a scrape with the school bully.

5. An awkward set of circumstances.

   I'm in a bit of a scrape — I've no money to buy my wife a birthday present.

   • 2020 December 2, “A life remembered: Stuart Baker”, in Rail, page 61:

     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.

6. (British, slang) A D and C or abortion; or, a miscarriage.
   • 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.

   • 1980, John Cobb, Babyshock: A Mother’s First Five Years, Hutchinson, page 232:

     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.

   • 1985, Beverley Raphael, The Anatomy of Bereavement: a handbook for the caring professions, Routledge,, →ISBN, page 236:

     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.

   • 1999, David Jenkins, Listening to Gynaecological Patients\ Problems, Springer,, →ISBN, page 16:

     17.Have you had a scrape or curettage recently?

7. A shallow depression used by ground birds as a nest; a nest scrape.
   • 1948, Behaviour: An International Journal of Comparative Ethology, E. J. Brill, page 103:

     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 […]

   • 2000, Charles A. Taylor, The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, Kingfisher Publications,, →ISBN, page 85:

     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.

   • 2006, Les Beletsky, Birds of the World, Johns Hopkins University Press,, →ISBN, page 95:

     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).

8. (military) A shallow pit dug as a hideout.
   • 2014, Harry Turtledove, Hitler's War:

     In between rounds, he dug a scrape for himself with his entrenching tool.

9. (UK, slang) A shave.
   • 1945, Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, page 66:

     A'm goin to the barber's for a scrape.

10. (uncountable, UK, slang, obsolete) Cheap butter.
11. (uncountable, UK, slang, obsolete) Butter laid on bread in the thinnest possible manner, as though laid on and scraped off again.
    • 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):

      “Got a nice bit of haddock for tonight. Thought I might do it with a poached egg, bit of pepper, bread and scrape”

12. (heraldry) A diminutive of the bend (especially of the bend sinister) which is half its width.

    Alternative form: scarpe

    Coordinate term: baton

    • 1730, Richard Blome, The Art of Heraldry, page 67:

      16. Azure, a Scrape Argent. 17. Gules, a Battune Argent.

    • 1810, Encyclopædia Britannica: Or, A Dictionary of Arts and Science, Compiled Upon a New Plan, page 406:

      Azure, a Scrape Or.

    • 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:

      Argent, a scrape purpure.

    • 1961, Jack Adolphe Reynolds, Heraldry and You: Modern Heraldic Usage in America, Edinburgh; New York : Nelson:

      (A variant blazon would be: Argent, three scrapes enhanced gules.)

13. An intermittent shallow pond in a wetland or floodplain, often artificially created to attract birds.

• (injury): abrasion, graze
• (fight): altercation, brawl, fistfight, fight, fisticuffs, punch-up, scuffle
• (awkward set of circumstances): bind, fix, mess, pickle
• See also Thesaurus:injury

• bread and scrape
• pick scrape

• (a shave; butter): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

• crapes, Casper, pacers, secpar, Pacers, recaps, escarp, scarpe, e-scrap, Cresap, spacer, Scaper, CASREP, scaper, parsec, capers, sparce

From scrapen.

• IPA^(key): /ˈskraːp(ə)/

scrape (plural scrapes)

1. (Late Middle English, rare) scratching

• English: scrape
• Yola: scrawb

• “scrāpe, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.