Scratchy means rough enough to irritate the skin. A scratchy jumper, scratchy wool, scratchy label.
Whether wool is scratchy depends on the thickness of the fibres rather than on the animal — fine merino is soft and coarse wool is not, which is why the two feel so different. Of a sound it means thin and rasping, as an old record is. Note scratch, which is imitative.
1adjectivescratchyRough enough to irritate the skin.
“The hotel towels were thin and scratchy.”
2adjectivethinThin and rasping, of a sound.
“The radio signal was weak, and the singer's voice sounded scratchy and far away.”
scratchy is a quality of roughness.
Middle English
scracchen
English
scratch
English, today
scratchy
Built from
From scratch + -y. scratch comes from Middle English scracchen, of unknown origin. Potentially a blend of Middle English scratten (“to scratch”) and cracchen (“to scratch”). More at scrat and cratch. Compare scrama, skråma, Schramme, which may be related.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA