Scratchy
adj, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Characterized by scratches.
"An indulgent playmate, Grannie would lay aside the long scratchy-looking letter she was writing (heavily crossed ‘to save notepaper’) and enter into the delightful pastime of ‘a chicken from Mr Whiteley's’."
- 2 Irritating; itchy.
- 3 Noisy, lossy; marred by white noise or static as a result of poor or low signal, interference or unfavourable atmospheric conditions. informal
"The FM station two hundred miles away was receivable, but the audio was too scratchy to positively identify."
- 4 Having popping and/or crackling sounds due to excessive wear, especially from scratch marks.
"Once he almost fell asleep, and then the little record player started up in his mother and father's bedroom. Mom was playing her scratchy Elvis 45s again."
- 5 Irritable; tetchy. informal
"'Now, now, don't get scratchy,' said Casali. 'You've got enough troubles of your own. […]"
- 1 unpleasantly harsh or grating in sound wordnet
- 2 lacking consistency wordnet
- 3 easily irritated or annoyed wordnet
- 4 causing abrasion wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"My throat feels dry and raw and scratchy."
Etymology
From scratch + -y.
Related phrases
More for "scratchy"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.