Word.ws English Dictionary

scrape

/skɹeɪp/

scrape verb: to draw (an object, especially a sharp or angular one), along (something) while exerting pressure.

scrape: to draw (an object, especially a sharp or angular one), along (something) while exerting pressure
Image: Jpbarrass, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

scrape (third-person singular simple present scrapes, present participle scraping, simple past and past participle scraped)

  1. (ambitransitive) To draw (an object, especially a sharp or angular one), along (something) while exerting pressure.
    • She scraped the wooden plate with her fingernails.
    • That car often scrapes the shallowest of humps because of its low ground clearance.
    Synonyms:
    scuff, grate, scratch, compare drag
  2. (transitive) To remove (something) by drawing an object along in this manner.
    • Scrape the chewing gum off with a knife.
  3. (transitive) To injure or damage by rubbing across a surface.
    • She tripped on a rock and scraped her knee.
    • We went tip-toeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads.1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter II, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 8
    Synonyms:
    abrade, chafe, graze
  4. (transitive) To barely manage to achieve or attain.
    • I scraped a pass in the exam.
    Synonyms:
    labor, squeeze, limp, squeak
    Antonyms:
    stroll, breeze, ride, coast, romp
  5. (transitive) To collect or gather, especially without regard to the quality of what is chosen.
    • Just use whatever you can scrape together.
  6. (transitive) To extract data by automated means from a format not intended to be machine-readable, such as a screenshot or a formatted web page.
    • They didn't provide an API, so I simply scraped their website.
    • The threat of the impending axe horrified Scott. He and his supporters hastily “scraped” as many Geocities^([sic]) pages as they could, creating a 641-gigabyte archive that initially circulated on file-sharing networks.2011 April 19, Sumit Paul-Choudhury, “Digital legacy: The fate of your online soul”, in NewScientist
  7. (intransitive) To occupy oneself with getting laboriously.
    • He scraped and saved until he became rich.
    • And he shall spend mine honour with his shame, As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...
  8. (ambitransitive) To play awkwardly and inharmoniously on a violin or similar instrument.
    • Some people covered their ears when he started to scrape his violin.
    • At that time the Grand Duke had only two occupations. One was to scrape the violin, the other to train spaniels for hunting.2010 January 5, Leslie Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages: A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire, Penguin, →ISBN
  9. (intransitive) To draw back the right foot along the ground or floor when making a bow.
    • Yossarian went along in Milo Minderbinder's speeding M & M staff car to police headquarters to meet a swarthy, untidy police commissioner with a narrow black mustache and unbuttoned tunic who was fiddling with a stout woman with warts and two chins when they entered his office and who greeted Milo...1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 425
  10. To express disapprobation of (a play, etc.) or to silence (a speaker) by drawing the feet back and forth upon the floor; usually with down.
    • When the debate was resumed, the tide ran so strongly against the accused that his friends were coughed and scraped down.1841, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Warren Hastings

Noun

scrape (countable and uncountable, plural scrapes)

  1. A broad, shallow injury left by scraping (rather than a cut or a scratch).
    • He fell on the sidewalk and got a scrape on his knee.
    Synonyms:
    abrasion, graze
  2. The sound or action of something being scraped.
    • For a long while, the only sounds in the café were the scrapes of forks against old white plates and occasional slurps from coffee mugs.2000, Liz Ireland, The Sheriff and the E-mail Bride, Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin, →ISBN, page 174
    • The scrape of the plate against the stone woke him, and he looked across to find Isocrates there, replacing the food.2014, Tim Leach, chapter 3, in The King and the Slave, London: Atlantic Books, →ISBN, page 262
    Synonyms:
    scraping
  3. Something removed by being scraped; a thin layer of something such as butter on bread.
    • A little solace came at tea time, in the shape of a double ration of bread—a whole, instead of a half-slice—with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter: […]1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter VII, in Jane Eyre. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 107
    • Or I could make a cup of tea and sit on the toilet with it – now we’re talking! And what about some toast and that last scrape of Marmite I hid…2013, Alfie Crow, Rant, Moth Publishing, →ISBN, page 17
    Synonyms:
    scraping
  4. (slang) A fight, especially a fistfight without weapons.
    • He got in a scrape with the school bully.
  5. An awkward set of circumstances.
    • I'm in a bit of a scrape — I've no money to buy my wife a birthday present.
    • Stuart made us all laugh - his mischievous stories were told throughout his career and in later days featured some very senior politicians and railway managers. He certainly got into many scrapes over the years.2020 December 2, “A life remembered: Stuart Baker”, in Rail, page 61
    Synonyms:
    bind, fix, mess, pickle
  6. (UK, slang) A D and C or abortion; or, a miscarriage.
    • It’s quite possible, in view of the diagnosis ‘danger of miscarriage’, that they might drag me off, give me a scrape and then say that the miscarriage began itself.1972, in U.S. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Abuse of psychiatry for political repression in the Soviet Union....
    • In expert hands abortion nowadays is almost the same as having a scrape (D & C) and due to improved techniques such as suction termination, and improved lighter anaesthetic, most women feel no worse than having a tooth out.1980, John Cobb, Babyshock: A Mother’s First Five Years, Hutchinson, page 232
  7. A shallow depression used by ground birds as a nest; a nest scrape.
    • We knew from U. Weidmann’s work (1956) that Black-headed Gulls could be prevented from laying by offering them eggs on the empty scrape veil before […]1948, Behaviour: An International Journal of Comparative Ethology, E. J. Brill, page 103
    • The plover lays its eggs in a scrape on the ground. ¶ […] ¶ Birds’ nests can be little more than a scrape in the ground or a delicate structure of plant material, mud, and saliva.2000, Charles A. Taylor, The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, Kingfisher Publications,, →ISBN, page 85
  8. A shallow pit dug as a hideout.
    • In between rounds, he dug a scrape for himself with his entrenching tool.2014, Harry Turtledove, Hitler's War
  9. (UK, slang) A shave.
    • A'm goin to the barber's for a scrape.1945, Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, page 66
  10. (UK, obsolete, slang, uncountable) Cheap butter.
  11. (UK, obsolete, slang, uncountable) Butter laid on bread in the thinnest possible manner, as though laid on and scraped off again.
    • “Got a nice bit of haddock for tonight. Thought I might do it with a poached egg, bit of pepper, bread and scrape”2018 February 11, Colin Dexter, Russell Lewis, 31:48 from the start, in Endeavour(Cartouche), season 5, episode 2 (TV series), spoken by DS Jim Strange (Sean Rigby)
  12. A diminutive of the bend (especially of the bend sinister) which is half its width.
    • Alternative form: scarpe
    • 16. Azure, a Scrape Argent. 17. Gules, a Battune Argent.1730, Richard Blome, The Art of Heraldry, page 67
  13. An intermittent shallow pond in a wetland or floodplain, often artificially created to attract birds.

scrape meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

scrape in Hindi

draw an object along while exerting pressure
कुरेदना kurednā, छीलना chīlnā

scrape in Tamil

சுரண்டு

scrape in Marathi

स्क्रॅप करण्यासाठी

scrape in Urdu

draw an object along while exerting pressure
کُریدْنا kurednā, چِھیلْنا chīlnā
More languagesFewer languages
scrape in Bengali
চাঁছা cãcha
scrape in Telugu
గీరు gīru
scrape in Malayalam
ചീവുക cīvuka, കോരുക kōruka, ചിക്കുക cikkuka, ചിരയ്ക്കുക ciraykkuka
scrape in Kannada
ಬೆರಟು, ಬೆರಂಟು, ಬೆಱಂಟು, ಬೆಱಟು
scrape in Punjabi
ਖੁਰਚਣਾ khurcaṇā
scrape in Gujarati
કાઢવું kāḍhvũ
scrape in Odia
ସ୍କ୍ରାପ୍ କରିବା ପାଇଁ
scrape in Sanskrit
रदति radati
scrape in Assamese
চাঁচ sãs
scrape in Nepali
स्क्रैप गर्न, स्क्र्याप गर्न
scrape in Arabic
خَمَشَ ḵamaša
scrape in Malay
kikis, mengikis, gesek
scrape in Indonesian
mengikis, kikis
scrape in Persian
خراشیدن xarâšidan, خاراندن xârândan
scrape in Thai
ถู tǔu, สี sǐi, รู่ rûu, เกา gao
scrape in Vietnamese
nạo, cạo, gọt, gạt
scrape in Myanmar
ချွတ် hkywat, ခြစ် hkrac

Examples of scrape in a sentence

  • My mum follows each scrape of the pen with rapt anticipation.2016, Danny Scheinmann, The Half Life of Joshua Jones, London: Unbound, →ISBN, page 262:
  • For her it is not “nothing,” “just a scrape,” or “not a life.” It is the beginning of a baby.1985, Beverley Raphael, The Anatomy of Bereavement: a handbook for the caring professions, Routledge,, →ISBN, page 236:
  • 17.Have you had a scrape or curettage recently?1999, David Jenkins, Listening to Gynaecological Patients\ Problems, Springer,, →ISBN, page 16:
  • Turkey females place their eggs in a shallow scrape in a hidden spot on the ground.2006, Les Beletsky, Birds of the World, Johns Hopkins University Press,, →ISBN, page 95:

All 40 example sentences with scrape

Synonyms of scrape

14 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of scrape

Forms of scrape

Verb
third-person singular presentscrapes
present participlescraping
past participlescraped
pastscraped
Noun
pluralscrapes

Past tense of scrape: scraped

Plural of scrape: scrapes

Origin of scrape

From Middle English scrapen, from Old Norse skrapa (“to scrape, scratch”) and Old English scrapian (“to scrape, scratch”), both from Proto-Germanic *skrapōną, *skrepaną (“to scrape, scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European *skrebʰ- (“to engrave”). Cognate with Dutch schrapen (“to scrape”), schrappen (“to strike through; to cancel; to scrap”), schrabben (“to scratch”), German schrappen (“to scrape”), Danish skrabe (“to scrape”), Icelandic skrapa (“to scrape”), Walloon screper (“to scrape”), Latin scribō (“dig with a pen, draw, write”).

Words formed from scrape

Phrases with scrape

Words that rhyme with scrape

21 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about scrape

What does scrape mean?
Scrape means to draw (an object, especially a sharp or angular one), along (something) while exerting pressure.
What is scrape in Hindi?
Scrape in Hindi is कुरेदना (kurednā), छीलना (chīlnā). See Scrape meaning in Hindi.
How do you use scrape in a sentence?
My mum follows each scrape of the pen with rapt anticipation.
What part of speech is scrape?
Scrape can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce scrape?
Scrape is pronounced /skɹeɪp/.
What is the past tense of scrape?
The past tense of scrape is scraped.

Words near scrape in the dictionary

  1. scrapbooking
  2. scrapbooks
  3. scrapbooky
  4. scrapbox
  5. scrapboxes
  6. scrape
  7. scrape acquaintance
  8. scrape along
  9. scrape and bow
  10. scrape at the bottom of the barrel
  11. scrape by

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scrape (page history and authors); scrape (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); scrape (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); চাঁছা (Bengali) (page history and authors); ഉരയ്ക്കുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); scrape (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); કાઢવું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); scrape (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); চাঁচ (Assamese) (page history and authors); scrape (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-scrape.ogg.

Cite this entry: “scrape.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scrape. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.