scrattle

present singular third person scrattles · participle present scrattling · participle past scrattled · past scrattled

1. To scratch.

   But if I'm duly sensible of this, And if I really fear to do amiss, How, George, how (in the name of wonder!) then, Dares my poor, puny, scurvy, scrattling pen Presume thy neat performances to trace, And, with mean words, thy beauteous works debase

   1738, The London Magazine, rev. Mr. Darwall, to Mr. George Bickham, "On the First Volume of his Musical Entertainer"; page 303

2. To make shift, to manage to get along.

   My husband says “What's the good of scrattling and saving, Edna, when in two–three years we might all be blown up by an atom bomb?

   2010, Robert Malcolmson, Patricia Malcolmson, Nella Last in the 1950s: Further diaries of Housewife, 49

3. UKdialectalintransitiveTo scuttle.