scrat

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skɹæt/

Etymology 1

From Middle English scratten. Origin uncertain; apparently related to Swedish kratta (“to rake”).

Verb

scrat (third-person singular simple present scrats, present participle scratting, simple past and past participle scratted)

1. (obsolete) To scratch, to use one's nails or claws.
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
     , New York Review of Books, 2001, p.286:

     Euclio […] as he went from home, seeing a crow scrat upon the muck-hill, returned in all haste, taking it for malum omen, an ill sign […].

2. (obsolete, UK) To rake; to search.
   • 1978, A.S. Byatt, The Virgin in The Garden, Vintage International 1992, p.89

     He himself had scratted in the thin dust of evangelical tracts.

Etymology 2

Compare Old English scritta (“a hermaphrodite”).

Noun

scrat (plural scrats)

1. (obsolete) A hermaphrodite.
   • 1649, Thomas Johnson, The Workes of that Famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey:

     three on the right side for males , three on the left side for femals , and one in the midst for Hermophrodices or Scrats

Etymology 3

Compare German Schratt and Old Norse skratti.

Noun

scrat (plural scrats)

1. (obsolete) A devil.

Related terms

• Old Scratch

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “scrat”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• C-rats, CARTs, Carts, SCART, carts, crats, scart