Word.ws English Dictionary

scratch beneath the surface

scratch beneath the surface verb: to look or see beyond what is obvious.

Verb

scratch beneath the surface (third-person singular simple present scratches beneath the surface, present participle scratching beneath the surface, simple past and past participle scratched beneath the surface)

  1. (idiomatic) To look or see beyond what is obvious.

Forms of scratch beneath the surface

third-person singular presentscratches beneath the surface
present participlescratching beneath the surface
past participlescratched beneath the surface
pastscratched beneath the surface

Questions about scratch beneath the surface

What does scratch beneath the surface mean?
Scratch beneath the surface means to look or see beyond what is obvious.
What part of speech is scratch beneath the surface?
Scratch beneath the surface is a verb.
What is the past tense of scratch beneath the surface?
The past tense of scratch beneath the surface is scratched beneath the surface.

Words near scratch beneath the surface in the dictionary

  1. scratch a liberal and you'll find a fascist
  2. scratch a living
  3. scratch an itch
  4. scratch and sniff
  5. scratch below the surface
  6. scratch beneath the surface
  7. scratch brush
  8. scratch brushes
  9. scratch by
  10. scratch card
  11. scratch cards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scratch beneath the surface (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: En-au-scratch beneath the surface.ogg.

Cite this entry: “scratch beneath the surface.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scratch_beneath_the_surface. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.