What does "scrambling" mean?

The act by which something is scrambled.

What is a synonym for "scrambling"?

Common synonyms include: motocross, motocross.

adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The act by which something is scrambled. countable, uncountable
"The scrambling of the message made it harder to decode."
2
Ascending steep terrain using one's hands to assist in holds and balance. countable, uncountable
3
The ability of a language to reorder arguments within a clause without changing the core meaning or violating grammaticality. countable, uncountable
"As all the Germanic languages are V2 languages (except English, which also has neither object shift nor scrambling), and as as the examples are main clauses without auxiliary verbs, the main verb has moved to C."

Verb

1
present participle and gerund of scramble form-of, gerund, participle, present
"The Air Force is scrambling the fighter jets."

Adjective

1
Confused and irregular; awkward; scambling.
"A huge old scrambling bedroom."
2
Having a stem too weak to support itself, instead attaching to and relying on the stems or trunks of stronger plants.
"All three types of climbing organs here demonstrated for Late Palaeozoic seed ferns are also found in modern angiosperms. This leads to the conclusion that several taxa of Late Palaeozoic seed ferns were well-adapted to climbing and scrambling growth habits."

"When she dumped me, the shock of it was like a huge gong going off and scrambling all my thoughts."

(linguistics): Coined by American linguist John R. Ross in 1967.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.