Scrabble (Hastings' Dictionary)

1 S 21" only, ' And scrabbled "on the doors of the gate ' (io;i. AVm and RVm ' made marks ' : the subst. ii? a mark or signature, esp. in the form of a cross, became the name of the Heb. letter n ; see Mark, § 6). The Eng. word comes from the Geneva version, where the marg. is by making markes and toyes.' Though the same in meaning as • Hcribble* (from Lat. teribere to write), it has no conne.xion with that word etjTnologically.

Skeat considers it to be a dialectic form of sorappIe' (a fre- quentative of 'scrape'), of which 'scramble' is a nasalized form. Bunyan uses ' scrabble' in the sense of ' scramble ' (//* p. 116, see Venables' note on p. 467), ' Now, after a while, Little- faith came to himself, and getting up, made shift to scrabble on his way.' The modern word 'scrawl,' says Skeat, 'appears to be nothing but a careless form of "scrabble."' J. HAS'nNGS.