scamble

present singular third person scambles · participle present scambling · participle past scambled · past scambled

1. intransitiveTo move awkwardly; to be shuffling, irregular, or unsteady; to sprawl; to shamble.

   Or if you will say, that there may some scambling shift be made without them […]

   1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 61

2. intransitiveTo move about pushing and jostling; to be rude and turbulent; to scramble; struggle for place or possession.

   How easy dost thou take all England up! From forth this morsel of dead royalty, The life, the right and truth of all this realm Is fled to heaven; and England now is left To tug and scamble and to part by the teeth The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.

   1596, Shakespeare, King John, act IV scene III

3. transitiveTo mangle.

   finding my Wood cut in Patches , and other parts of it scambled and cut before it was at its Growth

   1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC

4. transitiveTo squander.