Word.ws English Dictionary

scratch the surface

scratch the surface verb: to barely begin; to see or do only a fraction of what is possible.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To barely begin; to see or do only a fraction of what is possible.
    • This beginners' course only scratches the surface of the subject.

Forms of scratch the surface

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

Questions about scratch the surface

What does scratch the surface mean?
Scratch the surface means to barely begin; to see or do only a fraction of what is possible.
What part of speech is scratch the surface?
Scratch the surface is a verb.
What is the past tense of scratch the surface?
The past tense of scratch the surface is scratched the surface.

Words near scratch the surface in the dictionary

  1. scratch tape
  2. scratch team
  3. scratch teams
  4. scratch that
  5. scratch the itch
  6. scratch the surface
  7. scratch together
  8. scratch up
  9. scratch wig
  10. scratch wigs
  11. scratch'n'sniff

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scratch 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 the surface.ogg.

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