From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishscrawlscrawl1 /skrɔːl $ skrɒːl/ ●○○ verb [transitive] READto write in a careless and untidy way, so that your words are not easy to read → scribble He scrawled his name at the bottom.► see thesaurus at write→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
scrawl• Someone had scrawled a strange symbol on the wall above the bed.• At the head of each arrow, he scrawled further appreciation.• Three students were excluded for scrawling graffiti on a school wall.• Jim scrawled his signature across the bottom of the page.• Romanov scrawled his signature between the two X's with the proffered gold pen.• The tiny pens, scrawling in palsied traces on endless white ribbons of paper, slowly ground to a halt.• Names scrawled inside the boat matched those of migrants en route to join family members in Britain who had never arrived.• She tried to make sense of the dozens of scrawled, mostly incoherent pages Vilma sent in return.• With a sinking heart I noticed that he was holding up a piece of torn cardboard with my name scrawled on it.• The windows cowered behind a wire grill and were dotted with advertisements scrawled out on postcards.scrawlscrawl2 noun [countable, uncountable] WRITEuntidy careless writing The note was written in his usual illegible scrawl.Examples from the Corpus
scrawl• You end up with walls lined with sheets of paper, or blackboards covered with artistic scrawl.• The note was written in Gwen's childish scrawl.• One looked safe enough, bearing, as it did, Mr Yarrow's distinctive scrawl.• It is covered with a hasty scrawl in Darwin's hand.• The top page was covered in scrawls and doodles.• I couldn't read the doctor's scrawl.• Nifty handwriting recognition algorithms can translate the user's scrawls into print - and can shrink them to fit if necessary.• I kept a diary then -- pages and pages of tiny scrawl.• The wall was covered with scrawls done with a bit of pencil lead.• What does it say? I can't read your scrawl!Origin scrawl1 (1600-1700) Perhaps from crawl, influenced by scrawl “to lie carelessly” ((14-19 centuries)) 