Scrawl

//skɹɔːl// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Irregular, poor handwriting; especially, such writing that is illegible. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    poor handwriting wordnet
  3. 3
    A hastily or carelessly written note etc. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    Writing that lacks literary merit. countable, uncountable
  5. 5
    A broken branch of a tree. countable, uncommon
Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    The young of the dog-crab. countable, uncommon, uncountable
Verb
  1. 1
    To write something hastily or illegibly. transitive

    "She scrawled the main points onto her notepad."

  2. 2
    To creep; crawl; to move slowly, with difficulty, fearfully, or stealthily.

    "we will scrape and scrawl, and catch and pull to us all that we may get"

  3. 3
    write carelessly wordnet
  4. 4
    To write in an irregular or illegible manner. intransitive
  5. 5
    To write unskilfully and inelegantly. intransitive

    "c. 1710-1730, Jonathan Swift (probably), Sandys's Ghost Though with a golden pen you scrawl."

Synonyms

All synonyms
scribblebarbouillagecacographychicken scratchdoodlehen scratches

Example

More examples

"A terrible, almost illegible scrawl."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Possibly from Middle English scraulen (“to spread out one's limbs; sprawl”), itself an alteration of spraulen (“to sprawl”) or craulen, crawlen (“to crawl”). Alternatively, from scrall, a contraction of scrabble.

Etymology 2

From Middle English scraulen (“to crawl”), itself an alteration of crawlen (“to crawl”). More at crawl.

Related phrases

scrawl downscrawl offscrawl outscrawl up

More for "scrawl"

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