Word.ws English Dictionary

Old Scratch

Old Scratch proper noun: the Devil.

Proper noun

Old Scratch

  1. (Southern US, chiefly Midland US) The Devil.
    • “Lisieux is a little town in Normandy,” she said. “I was there a few days with your father, one summer, long ago. It’s a country full of old stories, folklore, and traditions; and the people still believe in the Old Scratch pretty literally. […]”1913, Booth Tarkington, The Flirt, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC

Synonyms of Old Scratch

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Origin of Old Scratch

Probably an alteration of scrat, from Middle English scrat, skratt, scratte, ultimately from Old Norse skratti (“a type of demon”).

Questions about Old Scratch

What does Old Scratch mean?
Old Scratch means the Devil.
What part of speech is Old Scratch?
Old Scratch is a proper noun.

Words near Old Scratch in the dictionary

  1. Old Scandinavian
  2. old school
  3. old schooler
  4. old schoolers
  5. Old Scotland Yard
  6. Old Scratch
  7. Old Serbo-Croatian
  8. Old Serpent
  9. old shoe
  10. old shoes
  11. Old Shoreham

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Old 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: “Old Scratch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/old_scratch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.