Word.ws English Dictionary

scribble

/ˈskɹɪbəl/

scribble verb: to write or draw carelessly and in a hurry.

Verb (1)

scribble (third-person singular simple present scribbles, present participle scribbling, simple past and past participle scribbled)

  1. (ambitransitive) To write or draw carelessly and in a hurry.
    • I suddenly remembered I needed to buy bleach, so scribbled it down on my shopping list.
    Synonyms:
    scrabble
  2. To doodle.
    Synonyms:
    scrawl
  3. To write badly; to work as an inferior author or journalist.

Noun

scribble (countable and uncountable, plural scribbles)

  1. Careless, hasty writing, doodle or drawing
    Synonyms:
    doodle, squiggle

Verb (2)

scribble (third-person singular simple present scribbles, present participle scribbling, simple past and past participle scribbled)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To card or tease (wool) coarsely; to run through a scribbler.

scribble meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

scribble in Hindi

to scribble, doodle
घसीटना ghasīṭnā

scribble in Tamil

to write or draw carelessly and in a hurry
கிறுக்கு kiṟukku
hastily done writing
கிறுக்கு kiṟukku

scribble in Urdu

شکست, گھسیٹنا, کاغذ سیاہ کرنا, لکھنا

scribble in Bengali

তাড়াহুড়ো করে, অস্পষ্টভাবে লেখা
More languagesFewer languages
scribble in Telugu
గోకు gōku
scribble in Malayalam
കുത്തുംവര kuttuṁvara, കുത്തുംവരയ്ക്കുക kuttuṁvaraykkuka
scribble in Kannada
ಗೀಚು ಬರಹ, ಸಿಕ್ಕಾಪಟ್ಟೆ ಗೀಚುವುದು, ಗೀಚು, ಮನಸ್ವೀ ಬರೆ
scribble in Arabic
خربشة
scribble in Vietnamese
viết nguệch ngoạc, viết cẩu thả

Examples of scribble in a sentence

  • This is scratch paper, so go ahead and scribble whatever you want on it.
  • She scribbled a curve on the paper.
  • No, the original plan for Chicago's street layout was not scribbled on the back of a napkin by an ancestor of Roger Ebert; you just ate the onion.

All 36 example sentences with scribble

Synonyms of scribble

Forms of scribble

Verb
third-person singular presentscribbles
present participlescribbling
past participlescribbled
pastscribbled
Noun
pluralscribbles

Past tense of scribble: scribbled

Origin of scribble

From Middle English scriblen, from (1) scrīben + -le and/or (2) Latin scrībillō (found in conscrībillō), from cōnscrībō, from scrībō (“write”), equivalent to scribe + -le (frequentative suffix).

From Dutch schribbelen (“to scratch”), from Middle Dutch schrobben (“to scrub, scrape, scratch”), variant of schrapen, schrappen. Related to scrub.

Words formed from scribble

Phrases with scribble

Words that rhyme with scribble

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about scribble

What does scribble mean?
Scribble means to write or draw carelessly and in a hurry.
What is scribble in Hindi?
Scribble in Hindi is घसीटना (ghasīṭnā). See Scribble meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is scribble?
Scribble can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce scribble?
Scribble is pronounced /ˈskɹɪbəl/.
What is the past tense of scribble?
The past tense of scribble is scribbled.

Words near scribble in the dictionary

  1. scribatious
  2. scribbet
  3. scribbets
  4. scribblage
  5. scribblative
  6. scribble
  7. scribble down
  8. scribble lark
  9. scribble larks
  10. scribble off
  11. scribble-scrabble

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scribble (page history and authors); घसीटना (Hindi) (page history and authors); scribble (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); scribble (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); గోకు (Telugu) (page history and authors); കുത്തുംവര (Malayalam) (page history and authors); scribble (Kannada Wiktionary) (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-scribble.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-scribble.wav.

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