scrawl

American  

[skrawl] / skrɔl /

verb (used with object)

1. to write or draw in a sprawling, awkward manner.

   He scrawled his name hastily across the blackboard.

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verb (used without object)

1. to write awkwardly, carelessly, or illegibly.

noun

1. awkward, careless, or illegible handwriting.

2. something scrawled, as a letter or a note.

scrawl British  

/ skrɔːl /

verb

1. to write or draw (signs, words, etc) carelessly or hastily; scribble

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noun

1. careless or scribbled writing, drawing, or marks

Other Word Forms

• scrawler
  noun
• scrawly
  adjective
• unscrawled
  adjective
• unscrawling
  adjective

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."

Example Sentences

PORKY'S Scrawl a bit of American Graffiti across the front door of Animal House and you have a rough idea of Porky's effect.

From Time Magazine Archive

As his farewell to collegiate belles-lettres, Walliser took over the high-brow Scrawl, had that suppressed when he tried to build up circulation with an article attacking marriage.

From Time Magazine Archive

False Scrawl, untrue thou art, To feign those sighs that nowhere can be found; For half those praises came not from his heart Whose faith and love as yet was never found.

From Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles Phillis - Licia by Crow, Martha Foote

Anselmo," "The Dead Lover," "A Scrawl," "The Home-going," some of his sonnets, and the noble verses beginning "A monument for the soldiers!

From A Guest at the Ludlow and Other Stories by Edgar Wilson

Scrawl, skrawl, v.t. and v.i. to scrape, mark, or write irregularly or hastily.—n. irregular or hasty writing: bad writing: a broken branch of a tree: the young of the dog-crab.—n.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various

Related Words

• inscribe
• scribble