Word.ws English Dictionary

up to scratch

up to scratch adjective: sufficient; adequate; of acceptable or satisfactory quality.

Adjective

up to scratch (comparative more up to scratch, superlative most up to scratch)

  1. (idiomatic) sufficient; adequate; of acceptable or satisfactory quality
    • They decided that his performance was not up to scratch.
    • But the new trains form just one part of Metro Flow. It's no good having new trains if the network itself isn't up to scratch.2023 November 29, Richard Foster, “Tyne & Wear Metro goes with the flow”, in RAIL, number 997, page 32

up to scratch meaning in Bengali and Malayalam

up to scratch in Bengali

পর্যাপ্ত, যথেষ্ট, গ্রহণযোগ্য, সন্তোষজনক মানের

up to scratch in Malayalam

up to the mark, good enough, up to standard
അവശ്യം വേണ്ട ഗുണമേന്മയുള്ള, ഗുണനിലവാരമുള്ള, മാനദണ്ഡങ്ങൾക്കനുസരിച്ചുള്ള, പ്രതീക്ഷിച്ച ഗുണനിലവാരമുള്ള, ആവശ്യത്തിനു തികയുന്ന, കൊള്ളാവുന്ന

Forms of up to scratch

comparativemore up to scratch
superlativemost up to scratch

Origin of up to scratch

From scratch in the sense of a starting line, as in boxing.

Questions about up to scratch

What does up to scratch mean?
Up to scratch means sufficient; adequate; of acceptable or satisfactory quality.
What is up to scratch in Bengali?
Up to scratch in Bengali is পর্যাপ্ত, যথেষ্ট, গ্রহণযোগ্য. See Up to scratch meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is up to scratch?
Up to scratch is an adjective.

Words near up to scratch in the dictionary

  1. up to one's eyes
  2. up to one's neck
  3. up to one's neck in alligators
  4. up to one's old tricks
  5. up to par
  6. up to scratch
  7. up to snuff
  8. up to something
  9. up to speed
  10. up to standard
  11. up to the chin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: up to scratch (page history and authors); up to scratch (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); up to scratch (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-up to scratch.ogg.

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