The AI-powered English dictionary
countable and uncountable, plural scrawls
Irregular, possibly illegible handwriting. examples
A hastily or carelessly written note etc. examples
Writing that lacks literary merit. examples
(countable, uncommon) A broken branch of a tree. examples
(uncommon) The young of the dog-crab. examples
third-person singular simple present scrawls, present participle scrawling, simple past and past participle scrawled
(transitive) To write something hastily or illegibly. examples
(intransitive) To write in an irregular or illegible manner. examples
(intransitive) To write unskilfully and inelegantly. quotations examples
Though with a golden pen you scrawl.
c. 1710-1730, Jonathan Swift (probably), Sandys's Ghost
To creep; crawl; to move slowly, with difficulty, fearfully, or stealthily. quotations examples
we will scrape and scrawl, and catch and pull to us all that we may get
November 9, 1550, Hugh Latimer, A Sermon preached at Stamford
When I saw him scrawlen on the plain, My heart aw flacker'd for't, I was sae fain.
1797 (original possibly 1783), Josiah Relph, Poems by the Reverend Josiah Relph ... With the life of the author and a pastoral elegy on his death; by T. Sanderson, page 13
T'poor pig what had just scrawled through t'bottom o' t'cart,
1892, Clarke Tum Fowt Sketches, page 40, no. 3
'Cut its throat,' I calls to him, but he didn't, just slashes its forepaw; but it dropt di-rekly, couldn't hardly scrawl out on the bank.'
1896, Francis Hindes Groome, Kriegspiel: The War Game, page 252