scrape
pronunciation
How to pronounce scrape in British English:
UK [skreɪp]
How to pronounce scrape in American English:
US [skreɪp]
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- Noun:
- a harsh noise made by scraping
- an abraded area where the skin is torn or worn off
- a deep bow with the foot drawn backwards (indicating excessive humility)
- an indication of damage
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- Verb:
- scratch repeatedly
- make by scraping
- cut the surface of; wear away the surface of
- bend the knees and bow in a servile manner
- gather (money or other resources) together over time
- bruise, cut, or injure the skin or the surface of
- strike against an object
Word Origin
- scrape
- scrape: [14] Scrape is certainly of Germanic origin, but it is not clear whether it was borrowed from Old Norse skrapa (ancestor of Swedish skrapa and Danish skrabe) or Middle Dutch schrapen. Either way it goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *skrap-, source also of Old English scrapian ‘scratch’, which survived into the 16th century as shrape. Scrap ‘small piece’ [14] was borrowed from Old Norse skrap ‘remnants, trifles’, a derivative of the same base as skrapa; and scrap ‘fight’ [17] may have originated as a variant of scrap.=> scrap
- scrape (v.)
- early 13c., probably from Old Norse skrapa "to scrape, erase," from Proto-Germanic *skrapojan (cognates: Old English scrapian "to scrape," Dutch schrapen, German schrappen), from PIE *skerb-, extension of root *(s)ker- "to cut" (see shear (v.)). Meaning "gather by great effort, collect with difficulty" is from 1540s. Related: Scraped; scraping. To scrape the bottom of the barrel in figurative sense is from 1942, in reference to U.S. employers facing worker shortages during the war.
- scrape (n.)
- mid-15c., "a scraping instrument;" late 15c., "act of scraping or scratching," from scrape (v.). Meaning "a shave" is slang from 1859. Meaning "embarrassing or awkward predicament" is recorded from 1709, as OED suggests, "probably from the notion of being 'scraped' in going through a narrow passage."
Synonym
Example
- 1. Take two nails and scrape them together vigorously .
- 2. Scrape into the beans with a rubber spatula .
- 3. Trim both ends ; gently scrape off outer skin and smaller hairy roots .
- 4. Remove the old faucet and scrape any old putty or caulk from the basin .
- 5. He also uses it to scrape in the dirt for what the people who once lived there left behind .