Other forms: scraping, scraped, scrapes
To scrape is to drag a hard edge across a surface to get something off it. You scrape the burnt bits off toast, scrape ice from the windscreen with an old bank card, scrape the last of the yoghurt out of the pot.
It also means to hurt yourself by rubbing against something rough: he came off his bike and scraped his knee. Drag a chair across tiles and you get the third sense, the ugly noise. Two phrasal uses matter — scrape together means gather with difficulty (they scraped together the deposit), and scrape through means pass by the narrowest margin (she scraped through the exam). As a noun, a scrape is a graze on the skin and also a spot of trouble: he is always getting into scrapes. Scraping the bottom of the barrel is what you are doing when only the worst options are left.
1verbscrapeTo pull a hard edge across a surface to take off what is stuck to it.
“Scrape the pan while it's still warm or nothing will come off.”
Patternscrape sth off / out of / into · scrape the bowl / plate / pan · scrape sth clean · a scraper
2verbgrazeTo injure skin by rubbing it against something rough.
“She scraped her elbow on the wall going round the corner.”
synonyms: graze
3verbrubTo rub against something with a harsh noise.
“The gate scrapes on the path every time it opens.”
4verbgatherTo gather or manage something with real difficulty.
“They scraped together enough for one more month's rent.”
5nounshallowA shallow injury where the skin has been rubbed off.
“A few cuts and scrapes, nothing broken.”
synonyms: graze
6nounawkwardAn awkward situation you get yourself into and have to get out of.
“He has been in worse scrapes than this one.”
SCRAPE → the long rough sound of a knife on a pan
Drag the knife across the bottom of the burnt pan and listen: sss-crrape, and the black bits come away.
Scrape arrived twice over: Old Norse skrapa and Old English scrapian both meant 'to scrape, scratch', and both go back to Proto-Germanic *skrapōną and a Proto-Indo-European root *skrebʰ-, 'to engrave'. That same root stands behind Latin scrībō — 'dig with a pen, draw, write'. Writing began as scraping: marks cut into a surface with a hard point. Scrape kept the tool and let Latin take the meaning.
Proto-Indo-European
*skrebʰ- — to engrave
Proto-Germanic
*skrapōną
Old English
scrapian — to scrape, scratch
Old Norse
skrapa — to scrape, scratch
Middle English
scrapen
English, today
scrape
Built from
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”), wa screper (“to scrape”), Latin scribō (“dig with a pen, draw, write”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA