cratch
/kɹæt͡ʃ/
cratch verb: to scratch.
Verb
cratch (third-person singular simple present cratches, present participle cratching, simple past and past participle cratched)
- To scratch.
- A good pair of nails to cratch and claw.
Noun (1)
cratch (plural cratches)
- A grated crib or manger.
- Begin from first where He encradled was, / In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay.1596, Edmund Spenser, A Hymne of Heavenly Love
- The vertical planks at the forward end of the hold of a traditional English narrowboat which constrain the cargo and support the top plank or walkway.
- The fore-end of the cargo space terminates in a triangular board, called the cratch, raised to the same height as the cabin roof and connected to it […]1966, Gervis Frere-Cook, The decorative arts of the mariner
Noun (2)
cratch (plural cratches)
Forms of cratch
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | cratches |
| present participle | cratching |
| past participle | cratched |
| past | cratched |
| Noun | |
| plural | cratches |
Origin of cratch
From Middle English cratchen, cracchen (“to scratch”), alteration of *cratsen (“to scratch”), from Old Norse *kratsa or Middle Low German kratsen, krassen (“to scratch”), both ultimately from Old High German krazzōn, crazōn (“to scratch”), from Proto-Germanic *krattōną (“to scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European *gred-, *grod- (“to scratch, scrape”). Cognate with Icelandic krota (“to engrave”). Compare also Icelandic krassa (“to scrawl”), Danish kradse (“to scratch, scrape, claw”), Swedish kratsa (“to scratch”), Dutch kratsen (“to scratch”), German kratzen (“to scratch”), and Albanian gërresë (“rasp, scraper”).
From Middle English cratche, cracche, crecche (“crib”), from Old French creche (“crib, manger”), from Frankish *krippjā, *kribbjā (“crib”), from Proto-Germanic *kribjǭ. More at creche, crib.
From Etymology 1.
Words formed from cratch
- cratch cradle
Words that rhyme with cratch
Questions about cratch
- What does cratch mean?
- Cratch means to scratch.
- What part of speech is cratch?
- Cratch can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce cratch?
- Cratch is pronounced /kɹæt͡ʃ/.
- What is the past tense of cratch?
- The past tense of cratch is cratched.
Words near cratch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cratch (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cratch.wav.
Cite this entry: “cratch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cratch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.