Definition of "scrape"

scrape

/skɹeɪp/

verb
third-person singular simple present scrapes, present participle scraping, simple past and past participle scraped
1. (transitive, intransitive) To draw (an object, especially a sharp or angular one), along (something) while exerting pressure.
2. (transitive) To remove (something) by drawing an object along in this manner.
3. (transitive) To injure or damage by rubbing across a surface.
  Quotations
  We went tip-toeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads.
  1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter II, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], page 8
4. (transitive) To barely manage to achieve.
5. (transitive) To collect or gather, especially without regard to the quality of what is chosen.
6. (computing) To extract data by automated means from a format not intended to be machine-readable, such as a screenshot or a formatted web page.
  Quotations
  The threat of the impending axe horrified Scott. He and his supporters hastily “scraped” as many Geocities[sic] pages as they could, creating a 641-gigabyte archive that initially circulated on file-sharing networks.
  2011 April 19, Sumit Paul-Choudhury, “Digital legacy: The fate of your online soul”, in NewScientist‎
7. (intransitive) To occupy oneself with getting laboriously.
  Quotations
  And he shall spend mine honour with his shame, As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold
  1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene iii]
8. (transitive, intransitive) To play awkwardly and inharmoniously on a violin or similar instrument.
9. (intransitive) To draw back the right foot along the ground or floor when making a bow].
  Quotations
  Yossarian went along in Milo Minderbinder's speeding M & M staff car to police headquarters to meet a swarthy, untidy police commissioner with a narrow black mustache and unbuttoned tunic who was fiddling with a stout woman with warts and two chins when they entered his office and who greeted Milo with warm surprise and bowed and scraped in obscene servility as though Milo were some elegant marquis.
  1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, page 425
10. To express disapprobation of (a play, etc.) or to silence (a speaker) by drawing the feet back and forth upon the floor; usually with down.
  Quotations
  All the various kinds of interest which 80 strongly against the accused , that his friends belong to the near and to the distant , to the were coughed and scraped down.
  1841, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Warren Hastings
noun
countable and uncountable, plural scrapes
1. A broad, shallow injury left by scraping (rather than a cut or a scratch).
2. (slang) A fight, especially a fistfight without weapons.
3. An awkward set of circumstances.
  Quotations
  Stuart made us all laugh - his mischievous stories were told throughout his career and in later days featured some very senior politicians and railway managers. He certainly got into many scrapes over the years.
  2020 December 2, “A life remembered: Stuart Baker”, in Rail, page 61
4. (Britain, slang) A D and C or abortion; or, a miscarriage.
  Quotations
  It’s quite possible, in view of the diagnosis ‘danger of miscarriage’, that they might drag me off, give me a scrape and then say that the miscarriage began itself.
  1972, in U.S. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Abuse of psychiatry for political repression in the Soviet Union. Hearing, Ninety-second Congress, second session, United States Government Printing Office, page 127
  In expert hands abortion nowadays is almost the same as having a scrape (D & C) and due to improved techniques such as suction termination, and improved lighter anaesthetic, most women feel no worse than having a tooth out.
  1980, John Cobb, Babyshock: A Mother’s First Five Years, Hutchinson, page 232
  The loss is significant to the woman and will be stated as such by her. For her it is not “nothing,” “just a scrape,” or “not a life.” It is the beginning of a baby. Years later, she may recall it not just as a miscarriage but also as a baby that was lost.
  1985, Beverley Raphael, The Anatomy of Bereavement: a handbook for the caring professions, Routledge,, page 236
  17.Have you had a scrape or curettage recently?
  1999, David Jenkins, Listening to Gynaecological Patients\ Problems, Springer,, page 16
5. A shallow depression used by ground birds as a nest; a nest scrape.
  Quotations
  We knew from U. Weidmann’s work (1956) that Black-headed Gulls could be prevented from laying by offering them eggs on the empty scrape veil before […]
  1948, Behaviour: An International Journal of Comparative Ethology, E. J. Brill, page 103
  The plover lays its eggs in a scrape on the ground. ¶ […] ¶ Birds’ nests can be little more than a scrape in the ground or a delicate structure of plant material, mud, and saliva.
  2000, Charles A. Taylor, The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, Kingfisher Publications,, page 85
  Turkey females place their eggs in a shallow scrape in a hidden spot on the ground. Young are born ready to leave the nest and feed themselves (eating insects for their first few weeks).
  2006, Les Beletsky, Birds of the World, Johns Hopkins University Press,, page 95
6. (military) A shallow pit dug as a hideout.
  Quotations
  In between rounds, he dug a scrape for himself with his entrenching tool.
  2014, Harry Turtledove, Hitler's War
7. (UK, slang) A shave.
  Quotations
  A'm goin to the barber's for a scrape.
  1945, Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, page 66
8. (uncountable, UK, slang, obsolete) Cheap butter.
9. (uncountable, UK, slang, obsolete) Butter laid on bread in the thinnest possible manner, as though laid on and scraped off again.
  Quotations
  “Got a nice bit of haddock for tonight. Thought I might do it with a poached egg, bit of pepper, bread and scrape”
  2018 February 11, Colin Dexter, Russell Lewis, 31:48 from the start, in Endeavour(Cartouche), season 5, episode 2 (TV series), spoken by DS Jim Strange (Sean Rigby)
10. (heraldry) A diminutive of the bend (especially of the bend sinister) which is half its width.
  Quotations
  16. Azure, a Scrape Argent. 17. Gules, a Battune Argent.
  1730, Richard Blome, The Art of Heraldry, page 67
  Azure, a Scrape Or.
  1810, Encyclopædia Britannica: Or, A Dictionary of Arts and Science, Compiled Upon a New Plan, page 406
  Argent, a scrape purpure.
  1894, Sir Francis James Grant, The Manual of Heraldry: Being a Concise Description of the Several Terms Used, and Containing a Dictionary of Every Designation in the Science, page 21
  (A variant blazon would be: Argent, three scrapes enhanced gules.)
  1961, Jack Adolphe Reynolds, Heraldry and You: Modern Heraldic Usage in America, Edinburgh; New York : Nelson

Definition of "scrape"

scrape

verb

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