Mary grabbed Tom by the scruff of his neck.
Source: tatoeba (5397401)
Scruff
//skɹʌf//
Synonyms for "scruff" (11 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
Translations
38 translations across 15 languages.
Bashkir
2 entries- елкә noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
- елкә noun (scruff of the neck)
Bulgarian
2 entries- мърльо noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
- тил noun (scruff of the neck)
Catalan
1 entries- clotell noun (scruff of the neck)
Czech
4 entries- vagabund noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
- zátylek noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
- zátylek noun (scruff of the neck)
- špindíra noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
Finnish
4 entries- epäsiisti henkilö noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
- niskanahka noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
- niskavillat noun (scruff of the neck)
- törkimys noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
Galician
2 entries- pescozo noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
- pescozo noun (scruff of the neck)
German
3 entries- Genick noun (scruff of the neck)
- Schlafittchen noun (scruff of the neck)
- Schmutzfink noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
Icelandic
1 entries- hnakkadramb noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
Norwegian Bokmål
1 entries- nakkeskinn noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
Norwegian Nynorsk
1 entries- nakkeskinn noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
Polish
4 entries- brudas noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
- fleja noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
- flejtuch noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
- kocmołuch noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
Portuguese
1 entries- cangote noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
Russian
2 entries- загри́вок noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
- шки́рка noun (scruff of the neck)
Spanish
3 entries- pescuezo noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
- pescuezo noun (scruff of the neck)
- zarrapastroso noun (Someone with an untidy appearance)
Swedish
1 entries- nackskinnet noun (loose skin at the back of the neck of some animals)
Sample sentences
10 total sentences available.
Tom grabbed his son by the scruff of his neck.
Source: tatoeba (5397404)
Tom grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck.
Source: tatoeba (5699093)
Tom caught John by the scruff of the neck.
Source: tatoeba (7741645)
Showing 4 of 10 available sentences.
Keep exploring
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.