scrawl
Americanverb (used with object)
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scrawls,
present (3rd person singular)
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scrawled,
past participle, past
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scrawling
present participle
verb (used without object)
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scrawls,
present (3rd person singular)
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scrawled,
past participle, past
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scrawling
present participle
noun
-
awkward, careless, or illegible handwriting.
-
something scrawled, as a letter or a note.
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
scrawlsimple
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scrawlssimple
-
have scrawledperfect
-
has scrawledperfect
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am scrawlingprogressive
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are scrawlingprogressive
-
is scrawlingprogressive
-
have been scrawlingperfect progressive
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has been scrawlingperfect progressive
Past
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scrawledsimple
-
had scrawledperfect
-
was scrawlingprogressive
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were scrawlingprogressive
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had been scrawlingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of scrawl
1605–15; perhaps to be identified with late Middle English scraule to sprawl, crawl (blend of sprawl and crawl 1 )
Explanation
To scrawl is to write in a quick, barely readable scribble. When you're signing a document, you might scrawl your name across the bottom. Doctors are well-known for the way they scrawl prescriptions on a pad, and you can refer to that chicken scratch handwriting itself as a scrawl. It's not easy to read someone's scrawl, which is careless and rushed. The origin of scrawl is (fittingly) unclear, although one guess connects it to the Middle English scrawlen, "spread out the limbs" or "sprawl."
Vocabulary lists containing scrawl
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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When You Reach Me
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Bridge to Terabithia
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The note, written in messy scrawl on lined paper, said, “They investigated me for month—Found nothing!!!”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
The BBC has seen a copy of the judgement which includes the report and a two-page prescription which shows the doctor's unreadable scrawl.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2025
I’m a champion of the film, and so, too, I reckon is the cineaste I saw inside the Lightbox theater wearing a souvenir T-shirt who’d scratched out the “Toronto” with black marker to scrawl, “Winnipeg.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2025
You’d scrawl your signature on each of the 25 cards, stuff them into their flimsy red envelopes and address them, painstakingly, to each member of your class.
From New York Times ● Feb. 10, 2024
My scrawl is up all over this town—the curls behind an M sharp like mountains with a Z cut like a lightning bolt.
From "How It Went Down" by Kekla Magoon
Molina saw the records and their scrawls as street-level snapshots of Mexican American youth life: “stories from the bottom up,” as he describes.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2026
Travis largely keeps his own counsel except when he scrawls in his journal, excerpts from which Mr. De Niro reads in voiceover.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026
On a notebook with “BE BEST” letterhead, Melania scrawls, “No phones.”
From Salon ● Feb. 1, 2026
By the end of October, the prime minister's frustration is obvious in the long note he scrawls at the end of a Covid briefing document marked OFFICIAL/SENSITIVE.
From BBC ● Nov. 19, 2025
But many of their favorite pictures and photographs were still hanging on that movie theater wall, above the empty mattresses, along with their homely scrawls; and scribbles.
From "The Thief Lord" by Cornelia Funke
Hunched over a desk in the Mountain State Spotlight newsroom in Charleston, West Virginia, pen in hand, we scrawled out official notice of our new school in a spiral-bound notebook.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2026
It is primarily composed of concrete streets, old family-run stores, and a massive influx of newer, sleeker businesses with scrawled cursive logos and $7 drinks.
From Slate ● Sep. 6, 2026
Earlier in our conversation, which veers rapidly across his prolific career, he held up a series of storyboards scrawled on white paper.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
Inside, travellers have left Greek scrawled on the walls, although it is not clear how old the writing is.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
She stopped by the petrol station near the hospital and was not surprised to see the sign scrawled in chalk: NO PETROL.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Earlier this year, Meta announced a multibillion-dollar cable project named Waterworth, which will connect the U.S. to South Africa, India and Australia, scrawling a 31,000-mile letter W on the face of the planet.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 2, 2025
He’d been accused of scrawling “No to war!” on a building.
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2024
The boy drew up his own plays, scrawling one in the dirt during his first season playing the game.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2023
“Math requires focus and sleep,” Mr. Galal told the students through a microphone, scrawling equations on a whiteboard.
From New York Times ● Aug. 6, 2023
The pigeon-holes were docketed, “letters-unanswered,” “letter-to-keep,” “household,” “estate,” “menus,” “miscellaneous,” “addresses”: each ticket written in that same scrawling pointed hand that I knew already.
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
