Definitions from The Online Plain Text English Dictionary:
Scratch
(a.) Made, done, or happening by chance; arranged with little or no preparation; determined by circumstances; haphazard; as, a scratch team; a scratch crew for a boat race; a scratch shot in billiards.
(n.) A break in the surface of a thing made by scratching, or by rubbing with anything pointed or rough; a slight wound, mark, furrow, or incision.
(n.) A kind of wig covering only a portion of the head.
(n.) A line across the prize ring; up to which boxers are brought when they join fight; hence, test, trial, or proof of courage; as, to bring to the scratch; to come up to the scratch.
(n.) A shot which scores by chance and not as intended by the player; a fluke.
(n.) In various sports, the line from which the start is made, except in the case of contestants receiving a distance handicap.
(n.) Minute, but tender and troublesome, excoriations, covered with scabs, upon the heels of horses which have been used where it is very wet or muddy.
(v. i.) To score, not by skillful play but by some fortunate chance of the game.
(v. i.) To use the claws or nails in tearing or in digging; to make scratches.
(v. t.) To cancel by drawing one or more lines through, as the name of a candidate upon a ballot, or of a horse in a list; hence, to erase; to efface; -- often with out.
(v. t.) To dig or excavate with the claws; as, some animals scratch holes, in which they burrow.
(v. t.) To rub and tear or mark the surface of with something sharp or ragged; to scrape, roughen, or wound slightly by drawing something pointed or rough across, as the claws, the nails, a pin, or the like.
(v. t.) To write or draw hastily or awkwardly.
OPTED is a public domain English word list dictionary, based on the public domain portion of "The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary" which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. (See Project Gutenburg.)
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