1851. Hawthorne, Seven Gables, xi. He took off his Highland bonnet, and performed a bow and scrape.
3. (common).—A shave: hence scraper = (a) a razor, and (b) a barber; and as verb = to shave.
1869. Public Opinion, 19 June. The beard and moustache which the sailors in the Royal Navy will be permitted to wear, thereby doing away with the objection that blue-jackets have to the scraper.
4. (school).—Cheap butter: whence bread and scrape = (a) bread very thinly spread with butter, and (b) short commons. Scrape also = short shrift.
1873. Broughton, Nancy, xlvii. Some people have their happiness thinly spread over their whole lives, like bread AND SCRAPE!
1899. Pall Mall Gazette, 5 Ap., 2, 1. From the French adventurers he was only likely to get what schoolboys call scrape, for though musical boxes and patent arm-*chairs are all very well in the way, they do not serve to check a Dervish attack or to keep wild Somalis in subjection.
5. (old).—A turn at fiddling: also scraping; as verb = to fiddle; SCRAPER (or GUT-SCRAPER) = a fiddler. See Cat-gut SCRAPER.
1607. Dekker and Webster, Westward Hoe, v. 1. 'They are but rosining, sir, and they'll scrape themselves into your company presently' . . . 'Plague a' their cat's-guts and their scraping.'
1611. Chapman, May-day, iv. 1. Strike up, scrapers!
d. 1667. Cowley [Johnson]. Out! ye sempiternal scrapers.
1785. Burns, Jolly Beggars. Her charms had struck a sturdy Caird, As weel's a poor gut-scraper.
6. (old).—A miser: also SCRAPER, SCRAPE-PENNY, SCRAPE-ALL, SCRAPESCALL, and scrapegood. As verb = to stint, to deny.
1631. G. Herbert, Temple, 'Church Porch.' Never was scraper brave man.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, 111. iv. A pinch-penny, a scrape-good wretch.
c. 1696. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Scrape all, a Money-Scrivener: also a miserable Wretch, or gripping Fellow.
TO SCRAPE THE ENAMEL, verb. phr. (cyclists').—To scratch the skin: by a fall.
See Acquaintance; Leg.
Scraper, subs. (nautical).—A
cocked hat (C. Russell).
See Scrape, Catgut-scraper, Elbow-scraper.
Scraping, subs. (old).—See quot.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Scraping. A mode of expressing dislike to a person, or sermon, practised at Oxford by the students, in scraping their feet against the ground during the preachment; frequently done to testify their disapprobation of a proctor who has been, they think, too rigorous.
Scrape-trencher, subs. phr.
(old).—A glutton.
1772. Foote, Nabob, iii. So, Mr. Scrapetrencher, let's have no more of your jaw.
Scrappy (Scrappiness, and
Scrappily), adj., subs. and adv.
(colloquial).—Made up of odds
and ends; in driblets; without
system.
1872. Eliot, Middlemarch, ii. Balanced . . . neatness . . . conspicuous from its contrast with . . . scrappy slovenliness.
1886. Cont. Rev., xlix. 779. [Carlyle] was still a raw, narrow-minded, scrappily educated Scotchman.
1890. Academy, 12 Ap., Adv. iv. Well graduated and sufficiently long to avoid scrappiness.
Scratch, subs. (old Scots').—1.
See quot.: also scrat (Coles).
1560. Lindsay, of Pitscottie, Cronicles (Edinburgh, 1883), 1. 162. Thare was one borne quhich had the memberis both of male and female, called in oure language ane scratch.
