scribble

verb scrib·ble \ ˈskri-bəl \

|Updated on: 13 Jul 2018

Examples: scribble in a Sentence

scribbled; scribbling play \ˈskri-b(ə-)liŋ\

transitive verb

1 : to write hastily or carelessly without regard to legibility or form

2 : to cover with careless or worthless writings or drawings

intransitive verb

: to write or draw hastily and carelessly

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scribble

noun

See scribble defined for English-language learners

See scribble defined for kids

Examples of scribble in a Sentence

She scribbled a note to him and then dashed off to her meeting.
He scribbled down his phone number.
Students scribbled furiously as the professor lectured.
She was scribbling away in a notebook.
The toddler scribbled all over the paper.

Recent Examples of scribble from the Web

What impressed medical experts most was Google's ability to sift through data previously out of reach: notes buried in PDFs or scribbled on old charts.

— mark bergen, ajc, "Google is training machines to predict when a patient will die," 23 June 2018
Mary is first seen as an unhappy and ignored adolescent, feverishly scribbling ghoulish tales in her journal atop the grave of her mother, the pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who died after giving birth to her.

— ty burr, BostonGlobe.com, "Mary Shelley’s monster hit," 30 May 2018
In a courtroom near the Rio Grande, lawyer Efren Olivares and his team with the Texas Civil Rights Project frantically scribble down children's names, birthdates, and other details from handcuffed men and women waiting for the court to begin.

— The Christian Science Monitor, "Next hurdle at the border: how to reunite children with families," 21 June 2018
In a courtroom near the Rio Grande, lawyer Efren Olivares and his team with the Texas Civil Rights Project frantically scribble down children’s names, birthdates and other details from handcuffed men and women waiting for court to begin.

— BostonGlobe.com, "Trump administration has no clear plan yet on how to reunite parents with children," 20 June 2018
In a courtroom near the Rio Grande, lawyer Efren Olivares and his team with the Texas Civil Rights Project frantically scribble down children's names, birthdates and other details from handcuffed men and women waiting for court to begin.

— CBS News, "No clear plan yet on how to reunite parents with children," 20 June 2018
In a courtroom near the Rio Grande, lawyer Efren Olivares and his team with the Texas Civil Rights Project frantically scribble down children’s names, birthdates and other details from handcuffed men and women waiting for court to begin.

— Washington Post, "No clear plan yet on how to reunite parents with children," 20 June 2018
In her 20-plus years in the city, Levin has worked herself into its small writers’ community and spends her workdays at the Grotto, where the city’s literati congregate to scribble.

— david ferry, San Francisco Chronicle, "Food critic Rachel Levin contemplates close encounters of the animal kind," 7 June 2018
Rumor has it that Albert Einstein spent his last few hours on Earth scribbling something on a piece of paper in a last attempt to formulate a theory of everything.

— lorenzo bianchi, Newsweek, "Was This Stephen Hawking's Theory of Everything?," 19 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'scribble.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of scribble

Middle English scriblen, from Medieval Latin scribillare, from Latin scribere to write

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 15th century

in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1

See Words from the same year

scribble Synonyms

Synonyms

author, pen, scratch (out), write;

recast, redraft, revise, rewrite;

letter, print, type, typewrite;

record, take down, transcribe;

autograph, pencil (in), register, sign;

couch, express, phrase, put, word;

SCRIBBLE Defined for English Language Learners

scribble

verb

: to write (something) quickly and in a way that makes it difficult to read
: to draw lines, shapes, etc., that have no particular meaning in a quick and careless way

SCRIBBLE Defined for Kids

scribble

verb scrib·ble \ ˈskri-bəl \

scribbled; scribbling

: to write quickly or carelessly

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scribbler

\ˈskri-blər\ noun

Word Root of scribble

The Latin word scribere, meaning “to write,” and its form scriptus give us the roots scrib and script. Words from the Latin scribere have something to do with writing. To scribble is to write quickly or carelessly. To describe is to write or tell about something or someone. A manuscript is a document written by hand. To transcribe is to write down something spoken or copy something written.