Word.ws English Dictionary

come to the scratch

come to the scratch verb: to step up to the scratch or mark made in the ring to be toed by the combatants in beginning a contest.

Verb

come to the scratch (third-person singular simple present comes to the scratch, present participle coming to the scratch, simple past came to the scratch, past participle come to the scratch)

  1. To step up to the scratch or mark made in the ring to be toed by the combatants in beginning a contest.
  2. (colloquial, figuratively) To meet an antagonist or a difficulty bravely.

Forms of come to the scratch

third-person singular presentcomes to the scratch
present participlecoming to the scratch
pastcame to the scratch
past participlecome to the scratch

Questions about come to the scratch

What does come to the scratch mean?
Come to the scratch means to step up to the scratch or mark made in the ring to be toed by the combatants in beginning a contest.
What part of speech is come to the scratch?
Come to the scratch is a verb.
What is the past tense of come to the scratch?
The past tense of come to the scratch is came to the scratch.

Words near come to the scratch in the dictionary

  1. come to someone's rescue
  2. come to terms
  3. come to terms with
  4. come to that
  5. come to the party
  6. come to the scratch
  7. come to think of it
  8. come to time
  9. come together
  10. come too
  11. come true

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: come to the scratch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “come to the scratch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/come_to_the_scratch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.