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Scrawl   Listen
verb
Scrawl  v. t.  (past & past part. scrawled; pres. part. scrawling)  To draw or mark awkwardly and irregularly; to write hastily and carelessly; to scratch; to scribble; as, to scrawl a letter. "His name, scrawled by himself."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scrawl" Quotes from Famous Books



... do about you, scapegrace, she would never trouble herself whether you were dead or alive! Fagotin! Here is a bundle of Paris newspapers for you; they are quite new—only nine months old! Potele! Some woman has sent you a love-scrawl and some tobacco; I suppose she knew your passions all ended in smoke! Rafle! Here is a little money come for you from France; it has not been stolen, so it will have no spice for you! Racoleur! Here is a love-billet from some simpleton, with a knife ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... your joking did last night!" She handed him the slip of paper. He, too, chuckled tenderly, for the scrawl ran: "What I want for Chrismas: Pictures, pretty ones, Picture frames, Chairs, Plates for dinner, Knives, Spoons, Anything for a flat." A little space followed as if the author had hesitated before he had added in heavier ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... conveyed to him the regrets of the new female college building committee, that his plans were too elaborate and costly, and must therefore be declined, really demanded no reply, and would probably never have one. It was the hurried scrawl from his friend Wilberforce which claimed of his sense of honor an answer by the next mail. The letter from Wilberforce was dated Philadelphia, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... sergeant reverently removed a pile of books and papers from a chair, dusted it, and placed it near an open window, and I amused myself by looking out upon the busy scene in the harbour, while the admiral proceeded to scrawl his signature upon document ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... and has brought a letter from Catherine. I find it lying by my plate when I come down to breakfast. I take it up, look at the superscription, partly in Catherine's well-known writing, partly in my landlady's spider scrawl—for it had gone first to my London rooms. I turn it over, feel it, decide it contains one sheet of paper only, and put it resolutely down. After breakfast is time enough to read it; nothing she can say shall ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... to write this scrawl to you on a round milk container in a camp near London. We are not permitted to ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... Let's Finis scrawl, And then Life's book put by; Turn each to each In all simplicity: Ere the last flame is gone To warm ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare

... showed him the anonymous scrawl which had kindled her fury against him. He turned it listlessly over in his hand. "I guess I know who it's from," he said, giving it back to her, "and I ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... muses who employed flint implements and arrow-heads for records, and neglected to clear away the remains of prehistoric meals in caverns. Others preferred to write their chronicles upon pots, urns and tombs or to scrawl placid monosyllables upon polygonal walls. But with all their industry the muses have never been able to keep pace with the material that has accumulated round the dwellings of men and women. They have done their best and, when their mother ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... Mather's "History of Witchcraft," a "New England Almanac," and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper; who, from that time forward, determined to send his children no more to school, observing that he never knew any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter's pay ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving

... nearly the last letter before the Alcestis was heard of at Spithead. Then she sailed; she sent in her letters to Plymouth, and her final greetings by a Falmouth cutter—poor Harry's wild scrawl in ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... right! There was nothing on the glued-down top flap, but the inside back of the envelope wasn't blank, as it should have been. It wasn't written on in Thompson's neat copperplate or in his neat phrases, either. A pencil scrawl stared at me, upside down, as I gripped the lower flap of the envelope unconsciously, under the ball of my big thumb. "Why, here's some more," I exclaimed like an ass, glaring at the envelope's inside ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... see the outline of a gloomy shore. The thin paper, a leaf torn from a book, had print on the reverse side, and the letters showed through in grayish flecks and gave the curious impression as of clouds in the sky. And that little drawing, with less form than a school-boy's blackboard scrawl, was completely transfigured by those gray spots, and because of them it took on for me a deep and dreadful significance. Aided by the dim light in the room the pictured scene became a vision that faded away into the ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... unpleasant subjects; but when Saturday night came she could put it off no longer, so, fetching down her writing-case, she spoiled a dozen sheets of paper in the effort to make her news fairly palatable, finally dashing off an unsatisfactory scrawl, badly written and lamely expressed; and, having folded and directed it, she flew out into the yard to find a messenger to take it. The first who presented himself ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... her handkerchief, because she happened to have it in her hand—a dainty thing with lace on the edge and her name written in tiny script by her mother's careful hand on the narrow hem. And then after a little, as soon as she could scrawl it without being noticed, she wrote a note which she twisted around the neck of a red chessman, and left behind her. After that scraps of paper, as she could reach them out of the bag tied on behind her saddle; then a stocking, a bedroom slipper, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... is calm without The stormy spirit wars with endless doubt; This is the mocking spectre, scarce concealed Behind tradition's bruised and battered shield. He sees the sleepless critic, age by age, Scrawl his new readings on the hallowed page, The wondrous deeds that priests and prophets saw Dissolved in legend, crystallized in law, And on the soil where saints and martyrs trod Altars new builded to the Unknown God; His shrines imperilled, his evangels torn,— He dares not limp, but ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... little dirty envelope, with an illiterate scrawl. I opened it carelessly, but as my eye fell on the President's hand, I started in amazement. The note was dated "Saturday—From on board The Songstress," and ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... dash it to the ground? Shall I, a mediator between God and man, falter in my speech, and my tongue hang palsied in my mouth, because Aurelian speaks? What to me, O Romans, is the edict of a Roman Emperor? Down, down, accursed scrawl! nor insult longer both ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... him; he omits not one, And all the sorrows of his state are gone. - Alas! even then, in that delicious hour, He feels his fortune, and laments its power. Some Tradesman's bill his wandering eyes engage, Some scrawl for payment thrust 'twixt page and page; Some bold, loud rapping at his humble door, Some surly message he has heard before, Awake, alarm, and tell him he is poor. An angry Dealer, vulgar, rich, and proud, Thinks of his bill, and, passing, raps aloud; The elder daughter meekly makes him way - "I ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... to his house; sent me a card, half of it printed like a book! t'other half a scrawl could not read; pretended to give a supper; all a mere bam; went without my dinner, and got nothing to eat; all glass and shew: victuals painted all manner of colours; lighted up like a pastry-cook on twelfth-day; wanted something solid, and got a great lump of sweetmeat; ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... brought into Greece very early, by [521]Cadmus. Let us for a while grant it; and inquire what was the progress. They had the use of them so far as to put an inscription on the pediment of a temple, or upon a pillar; or to scrawl a man's name upon a tile or an oyster-shell, when they wanted to banish or poison him. Such scanty knowledge, and so base materials, go but a little way towards science. What history was there of Corinth, or of Sparta? What annals were there of Argos, or Messena; of Elis, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... your cheek and sends the blood leaping in glad life. You love water and fire and wind, elemental things, and you love them with fervor and passion. All this to the world! Much more intimate to me, who can read the letters you scrawl for the impudent, careless world. For deep down in the core of that rose there lies a soul that permeates it all—a longing, restless soul, one moment revealing a heaven that the next is shut out in ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... write a fearful scrawl," Mrs. Hastings commented, "his l's and his t's and his vowels were all the same height. I used to tell him that I didn't ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... him in surprise, and then at her right hand. It held a stylograph and had been resting on some scattered sheets of foolscap that Ian had left there in the morning. She had certainly been scrawling on it a little, but she was not aware of having written anything. Yet the scrawl, partly on one sheet and partly on another, was writing, very bad and broken, but still with a resemblance to her own handwriting. She pored over it; then looked Ian in the eyes, her own eyes large with a bewilderment ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... understand that one man, however diligent, could not be minutely acquainted with all the public and private affairs of fifty millions of other men. He was a glutton of work. He was born to write despatches, and to scrawl comments upon those which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... a neat, pretty little hand, which of itself seemed to reprove the student's awkward scrawl. He turned then to his own studies, which he was pursuing in a tattered volume of Blackstone's Commentaries on the English Common Law. He did not get on very fast with this book, and sometimes he wondered what bearing it could have on the practice of the ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... Project's elaborate security precautions—went over to her mail file and found it empty. Which meant that whatever had come in was purely routine and already being handled by her skeleton office staff. Later in the day she might get a chance to scrawl Ruya Farn's signature on a few dozen letters and checks. Big job! Trigger ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... as I perused the epistles of Matthew Haygarth. I felt that these letters had in all probability been carefully numbered by the lady to whom they belong, and that to tamper with them to any serious extent might be dangerous. I have therefore only ventured to retain one insignificant scrawl as an example of Matthew Haygarth's caligraphy and signature. From the rest I have taken copious notes. It appears to me that these letters relate to some liaison of the gentleman's youth; though I am fain ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... message to the lad with his own hand. "For," said he, and confirmed it with an oath, "if I don't see him this very night it will be a pity:" words which were afterwards thought to have been prophetic by the curious in such matters. So Bellaroba entrusted him with her scrawl to "My love Angilotto," and the Captain chewed and swallowed it when she was not looking. Then he lifted her to his horse and rode with her into the green-sheltered Borgo, just as it was settling into twilight. And Olimpia, from her shutter, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... the bank. And there, not ten feet away, stood Lamborn. His mouth became a scrawl, he uttered a growl, he swayed with passion, he moved his hands at his side in a sort of twisting motion. And I thought: there are Zoe and Dorothy, and I may create a feud against me that will follow ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... has made me the happy instrument of destroying the enemy's fleet; which, I hope, will be a blessing to Europe. You will have the goodness to communicate this happy event to all the courts in Italy; for my head is so indifferent, that I can scarcely scrawl this letter. Captain Capel, who is charged with my dispatches for England, will give you every information. Pray, put him in the quickest mode of getting home. You will not send, by post, any particulars of this action; as I should be sorry to have any accounts get home before ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... discovered that this effigy meant a cow, then she cried out, "tee dee moomo!" with a joy which afforded me more satisfaction than any acceptance of a story on the part of an editor had ever conveyed. Each scrawl was to her a fresh revelation of the omniscience, the magic of her father—therefore I drew and drew while her recreant mother sat on the other side of the fire and watched us, a wicked smile ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... worked in the Troy laundry, she taught Miss Anthony to clear-starch and iron them. Each summer she managed to be home long enough to assist with the canning, pickling and preserving. The little journal gives the best glimpses of her daily life, usually only a hasty scrawl of a few lines but containing many flashes of humor and wisdom. Thus the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... addressed to Garman in a clear feminine hand, and it read: "Garman: Am at the cottage on Palm Island; come to-night. Annette." At the bottom in a huge masculine scrawl, were three words; "Poor ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... puts a spirit of joy into green field and hedgerow is awful to look upon in Paris. You leave the train half-frozen, to find the porters red-eyed from their watch. The customs officials, in a kind of stupor, scrawl cabalistic signs upon your trunk. You get outside the station, to find a few scattered cabs, their drivers asleep inside, their lamps blinking ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... ghastly "Deluge," and Gericault's dismal "Medusa." Gericault died, they say, for want of fame. He was a man who possessed a considerable fortune of his own; but pined because no one in his day would purchase his pictures, and so acknowledge his talent. At present, a scrawl from his pencil brings an enormous price. All his works have a grand cachet: he never did anything mean. When he painted the "Raft of the Medusa," it is said he lived for a long time among the corpses which ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... engaging manner carried him through. When he went away to the state university he made Fanny solemnly promise to write; to come down to Madison for the football games; to be sure to remember about the Junior prom. He wrote once—a badly spelled scrawl—and she answered. But he was the sort of person who must be present to be felt. He could not project his personality. When he came home for the Christmas holidays Fanny was helping in the store. He dropped ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... a gentleman whose intelligence revolts at usurpations must abstain from discussing the principles and policies of your Federal government, or receive the kicks of crossroad sputterers and press reporters; must either lie or be silent. They know only how to brawl and scrawl 'hot-head' and 'impolitic maniac.' Why, my free negroes know more than all your bosses. Now, damn it, put that ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... done, thank'God, with the long yarns Of the most prosy of ApostlesPaul,1 And now advance, sweet heathen of Monkbarns, Step out, old quizz, as fast as I can scrawl. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... dragged by five Mohammedan survivors. They had gained an outpost fort where, ever since, Parr had lain hovering between life and death, not only crippled by his wounds, but also stricken with the black-water fever. Then, at last, he had gathered strength enough to scrawl these lines. ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... and, in spite of her mother's opposition, the marriage was pushed briskly forward. The contract was signed at Paisley on June 10th, and on the following day the marriage was celebrated at the same place. Lady Catherine's is not among the signatures; but there is to be seen the almost illegible scrawl of the old grandfather and of Euphrame his wife, a daughter of Sir William Scott of Ardross. The bride's eldest brother, whose own marriage with the Lady Susannah Hamilton was soon to follow, and her cousin ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... of the tenderest parts in your own little volume, at the end of such a slatternly scribble as this, but indeed they cost us some tears. I scrawl away because of interruptions every moment. You guess how it is in a busy office—papers thrust into your hand when your hand is ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... dream about your being before Parnassus upon your trial for sedition and contumacy. I thought Thalia, Clio, &c. addressed you. Their speeches shall be nonsensified into rhyme, and shall be part of some other scrawl ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... admitted Bluff. "Do you know what he said when he was showing that scrawl to us fellows? I was close enough to get part of it, and I'm dead sure the words 'entering wedge' formed the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... bad writing of mine—very bad manners, to put any one—especially a Lady—to the trouble and pain of deciphering. I hope all about Donne is legible, for you will be glad of it. It is Lodging- house Pens and Ink that is partly to blame for this scrawl. Now, don't answer till I write you something better: but believe me ever and ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... the sooner he got through his work the better. I set it down in my mind that he had never had a son amissing on the field of battle, or he never would have written an anxious and sorrowing father such a cold scrawl. He did not even say that, if they got any tidings concerning my son, they would make me acquainted with them. He was only commanded to tell me that they did not know what I was, beyond every thing on earth, desirous to ascertain. Though perhaps, I ought to admit ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... of this hasty scrawl is once more to say to you farewell; for it is sweet to me even to address you. May God bless your dear brother, who has done much to sustain me, bowed down as I have been with misfortune, and broken in spirit; and may the ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray

... scrawl hastily with a dry pen that he had not time to dip in the well of ink. The shadow of the Lord Cromwell's silent return was cast upon ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... a woman, and the mistress of a house. Still I cannot think of you otherwise than as my younger sister. I have brought you up to womanhood, I taught you your letters; but now when I see your writing I am ashamed to send this scrawl. But of what use to be ashamed? My day is over; were it not so how should I be in this condition? What condition?—it is a thing I cannot speak of to any one; should I do so there will be sorrow and shame; yet if I do not tell some one of my heart's trouble I ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

... glass door of an orangery, the travailing historian might be seen from head to foot, miserably doubled up like Cardinal La Balue in his cage. It was here that he was sitting one morning with his eyes upon an ancient scrawl, having been already expelled from the lower room by the bang-bang-bang of Teyssedre, when he heard the sound ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... fanned me idly with his broad-brimmed hat. "Then all young ladies must be formed for that!" He laughed, and said. "Their letters read, and look, As like as twenty copies of one book. They're written in a dainty, spider scrawl, To 'darling, precious Kate,' or 'Fan,' or 'Moll.' The 'dearest, sweetest' friend they ever had. They say they 'want to see you, oh, so bad!' Vow they'll 'forget you, never, never, oh!' And then they tell about a splendid beau— A lovely hat—a charming dress, and send A little scrap of this ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... of the bed a taper Shall ever with matches be, A pencil and piece of paper, To note what occurs to me. * * * * * Since then I have tried, but the late joke, As seen in my bedside scrawl, Is always so poor,—that the great joke, I'm sure, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various

... bits o' paper be all she left behind her,—yes, keep them, but put back Mark's. Are they all here,—sure?" And the widow, though she could not read her husband's verses, looked jealously at the manuscripts written in his irregular, large scrawl, and, smoothing them carefully, replaced them in the trunk, and resettled over them some sprigs of lavender, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... there, Where all so quiet was before; They say the face has not a care Nor sorrow in it any more— His latest scrawl:—"Forgive me—You Who prayed, 'they know not what they do!'" My tears wilt never let me see This man that ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley

... read it?" cried Ahab. "Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it's but a dim scrawl;—what's this?" As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a long cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to insert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without its coming any ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... of the examinations," said the lady of fashion with a laugh, so pleased at her high-handed conduct that she did not yet feel the pain of the burns, "If that is a crime—well, monsieur must get his odious scrawl ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... a life, With large results so little rife, Though bearable, seem hardly worth This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth; Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread, The solemn hills around us spread, This stream which falls incessantly, The strange-scrawl'd rocks, the lonely sky, If I might lend their life a voice, Seem to bear rather than rejoice. And even could the intemperate prayer Man iterates, while these forbear, For movement, for an ampler sphere, Pierce Fate's impenetrable ear; ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... curiously, for it was open at the portrait of Roberts. Underneath the portrait were a few words written in pencil in a clumsy scrawl. I read them over, expecting some ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... household under the shadow of St. Gudule profited by her independence. She sent her brother a good deal of money, and received very cheery letters in acknowledgment of her generosity, with sometimes a little ill-spelt scrawl from Bessie, telling her that Austin was much steadier in Brussels than he had been in Paris, and was working hard for the dealers, with whom he was in great favour. English and American travellers, strolling down the Montagne de la Cour, were caught by those bright "taking" bits, which ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... a hasty scrawl on a prescription blank, and smiled at the discomfited faces of his two friends showing plainly in the lights which streamed from ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond

... controlled or assisted hand must depend largely upon the relative force, exercised by the joint hands. The difficulty in writing arises from the antagonizing motion of one hand upon the other, which is likely to produce an unintelligible scrawl, having little or none of the habitual characteristics ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay

... the words, "Tommy, make room for your uncle," on a chapel outside the walls of one very quiet little upland hamlet. The writing was in a child's scrawl, and in like fashion with all else that was written on the same wall. I should have been much surprised, if I had not already found out how many families return to these parts with children to whom English is the native language. Many as are the villages in the ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... the little chain of pitiful proofs. They found all the little, sweet, white girl-clothes folded neatly by themselves and laid in a pile together, as if on an altar for sacrifice. If the Little Girl had written "Good-bye" in her childish scrawl upon them, the Shining Mother would not have better understood. So many things she was ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... letters were received, and they were filled with eulogiums on our good conduct, having been written after the arrival of la Dame de Nantes; but great was my disappointment on finding there was not even a scrawl for myself. ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... like good children," she exclaimed, as Elleney entered, "I'll read it all out—every word. An' yez 'ull all know as soon as meself. But ye have me distracted entirely, tormentin' me the way ye're doin' now. Musha! did anybody ever see such a scrawl ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... scrawl of a note, delivered just after breakfast at Mr. Elton's door, brought Madeline to visit Mrs. Percival, who, like her mother, seemed to be in ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... will presently find themselves submitting. The railway will take away the lingering bits of romance from Servia; the lovely and lonely monasteries high among the grand peaks in the mountain-ranges will be visited by tourists from Paris, who will scrawl their names upon the very altars; and Belgrade will be rich in second-class caravanserais kept by Moses and Abraham. After the Austrians who have gone over into Bosnia will naturally follow a crowd of adventurers from Croatia and from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... she took up a pen, and upon a quarto page, already half filled with Leroux's small, neat, illegible writing, began to scrawl a message, bending down, one hand upon the table, and with her whole ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... into her chair and tore open the envelope. The inclosure was a dingy sheet of cheap notepaper covered with a penciled scrawl. With trembling fingers she unfolded the paper and read what was written there. Then she leaned back in the chair and put her ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... makes my hand something like your's—which, by the bye, you neglect rather too much: but, as what you write is good sense, every body will forgive the scrawl. ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson

... scrawl was finished, and looking up from the writing table he saw Joan Devereux passing through the hall. He got up and hurried after her. "Would you mind addressing this for me?" He held out the envelope. "I've managed to spoil the paper inside, ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... This done, I am off for the great field of performance, south and southwest. You shall hear of me, perhaps may wish to hear FROM me. Here is my address, meanwhile, in Alabama. I shall advise you of my further progress, and shall esteem highly a friendly scrawl from you. If you write, do not fail to tell me what you may hear of Mr. Latour Cleveland, and how he got down from the muck-heap. Write me all about it, Clifford, and whatever else you can about our ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... me this scrawl? It gave me a pointer, though. I suppose the writer will turn up for his reward; but the devil of it is he'll sell information of this sort to anyone who'll buy. Must weed him out when I've discovered the imp. At any rate Faust will go straight, now he's been ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... fact a singular scrawl. It consisted of all kinds of crooked characters, disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets. Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters inverted, or placed sideways, were ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... to bring to her mother a slight improvement, and Sally could again sometimes steal away with her slate and book, to sit alone on the big bowlder, and study. But, oftentimes, the print on the page, or the scrawl on the slate, became blurred. Nowadays, the tears came weakly to her eyes, and, instead of hating herself for them and dashing them fiercely away, as she would have done a year ago, she sat listlessly, and gazed across ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... "You are heavenly restful and comforting. You—" he checked himself and got up. "Then I'm to write, and you are to make out as much of my scrawl as you can and answer. Is ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... fair-haired man seated opposite him, Mademoiselle Baltz having been given an easy-chair close by Rasputin's table. It was a writing-table, but the scoundrel never wrote. Sometimes he pretended to do so, but the truth was that it was a long and painful procedure with him. He preferred to scrawl his initials to any typewritten letter ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... for Neville, and Cecile was knitting one for Heaven knows who, and Shiela, swinging her polo-mallet, sat waiting for her pony—the cunning little thing in her boots and breeches!—I mean the girl, not the pony, dear—Oh, my, I'm getting involved and you're hurrying through this scrawl perfectly furious, trying to find out what ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... But God has been with me—my strength and comforter. I am beginning to revive, but have not yet been able to go down stairs, or move, only creep about with the help of a cane. I do not know whether you can read the scrawl I have written, but I ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... news from home! I think of your letters so full of heart and friendship, with perhaps a little scrawl of Charley's or Mamey's, lying at the bottom of the deep sea; and am as full of sorrow as if they had once been living ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... all hope of description—as it might be, a visible god sitting in the garden of a world made new. They sell photographs of him with tourists standing on his thumb nail, and, apparently, any brute of any gender can scrawl his or its ignoble name over the inside of the massive bronze plates that build him up. Think for a moment of the indignity and the insult! Imagine the ancient, orderly gardens with their clipped trees, shorn turf, ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... succeeded, by dint of great interest, in procuring a situation in the Sham-Post. The duties, here, are simple, and not altogether unprofitable. For example:—very early in the morning I had to make up my packet of sham letters. Upon the inside of each of these I had to scrawl a few lines on any subject which occurred to me as sufficiently mysterious—signing all the epistles Tom Dobson, or Bobby Tompkins, or anything in that way. Having folded and sealed all, and stamped them with sham postmarks—New Orleans, Bengal, Botany Bay, or any other place a great ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... not intended to cross my letter to you; but the young ones will decipher the scrawl for you, and I flatter myself that you will not object to my filling my paper as full as it will hold. These four small pages, even when they are crossed, make but a poor amount of communication compared ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... instance. But, however, I understand you to be speaking of book-learning; and as to that, it is a simple affair. Most children, seeing books lying about, manage to read by the time they are four years old; though I am told it has not always been so. As to writing, we do not encourage them to scrawl too early (though scrawl a little they will), because it gets them into a habit of ugly writing; and what's the use of a lot of ugly writing being done, when rough printing can be done so easily. You understand that handsome writing we like, and many people ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... even thinking of that. I was thinking of Eunice, and of that round, childish scrawl of a diary upstairs in the attic trunk. And I was picturing Eunice, in the years to come, writing her diary; and I thought, what if she ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter

... detective, every unfamiliar sign or unusual incident meant a clue to some crime or burglary. Remembering this trait of Miss Aleyn's, Britt suddenly realised how full of meaning must have appeared the hasty scrawl he had left on Miss Aleyn s gate-post for the hounds' guidance that afternoon. He startled the maid-servant by a peal of laughter that echoed through ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... nine and ten o'clock when Marshall Langham reached his office. He scarcely had time to remove his hat and overcoat when a policeman entered the room and handed him a note. It was a hasty scrawl from Moxlow who wished him to come at once to ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... love letter—my first love letter—and she made no reply for eight days. Then came a scrawl: "I can't write letters. Wait till we can talk. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... must apologize for this most hasty and I fear illegible scrawl, and with our kind regards and best wishes for your safe return to your native country, and for many years of honorable labor there for the truth and freedom, I ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... of buried races that live beneath the rivers and mountains. He writes of amazing crimes he has committed, of weird longings that will not let him sleep. And, too, he writes of strange gods which man should worship. He pours out his soul in a fantastic scrawl. He says: "One is all. God looked down and saw ants. The wheel of life turns seven times and you can see between. You will sometime understand this. But now you have curtains ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... the flickering rays of the arc light Waco scribbled on the back of the envelope and signed his name. Lorry's companion read the scrawl and handed it back to Lorry. Waco humped ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... and writing would pass muster nowhere else, or casual visitors from the world of business, or young men and women fresh from school, or even children writing in round text,—all these classes may be represented in a single week's work; and the papers sent in will vary in elaborateness from a scrawl on a post-card to a magazine article or treatise. I have received an exercise of such a character that the student considerately furnished me with an index; I remember one longer still, but as this hailed from a lunatic asylum I will quote it only for illustrating the diversity of the spheres ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner

... abruptly the next day and found her packing her dolls. When she saw him, she sat down and began to weep hopelessly. He knew then that his fate was sealed. And when, a year later, he received her last little scrawl, he was almost glad that she went when ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... and threw on the table three small sheets of paper, covered with a hurried pencil scrawl, all from Varvara Petrovna. The first letter was dated the day before yesterday, the second had come yesterday, and the last that day, an hour before. Their contents were quite trivial, and all referred to Karmazinov ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... do so. It was a veritable scrawl, madam, running something like this: 'I return your daughter to you. She is here. Neither she nor you will ever see me again. Remember Evelyn!' ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... broke in, the banner blew, The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd, The fire shot up, the martin flew, The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd, The maid and page renew'd their strife, The palace bang'd, and buzz'd and clackt, And all the long-pent stream of life Dash'd ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... begun to scrawl, but whether In rhyme, or prose, or baith thegither; Or some hotch-potch that's rightly neither, Let time mak proof; But I shall scribble down some blether Just ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... away eastward—a crinkled line drawn faintly with a fine blue pencil, showing as an artistic scrawl on the canvass of the low clouds—we could hardly claim when the sketch of the distant land faded from view, that we had seen Japan. When Hongkong, of sparkling memory, was lost to sight, the guardian walls that secluded her harbor, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... upon his head Who dares insult the noble dead, And basely scrawl his worthless name Upon the records of their fame! Nelson, arise! thy country gave A heartfelt tear, a hallow'd grave: Her eyes are dry, her recreant sons Dare to profane thy mould'ring bones! And you, ye heroes of the past, Who serv'd your country ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various

... scrawl, dated Sept. 19th, 1774, recording the burial of one Matthew Haygarth, aged four years, removed from the burial-ground attached to the parish ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... or somewhere; for no mail will leave here for Norfolk for a long while to come. The odd part is, that he does not know George. But he said he would gladly take charge of it and remember the address, which Lilly told him was Richmond. Well! if the Yankees get it they will take it for an insane scrawl. I wanted to calm his anxiety about us, though I was so wildly excited that I could only say, "Don't mind us! We are safe. But fight, George! Fight for us!" The repetition was ludicrous. I meant so much, too! I only wanted him to understand he could best defend us there. Ah! ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... his voice was not sure as he translated the scrawl, "Nopper" Harrison standing behind him for the gleeful purpose of prompting him when the writing was beyond the range ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... was such a scrawl that my father could not read it, but underneath was printed, "Mayor ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... the inventor of "larnin'." The result was that Joss learned to read and write before the voyage was over. It is true there were few people outside the forecastle that could tell what it was all about, unless they studied very closely his eccentric pronunciation and the wild scrawl of his writing. He never went far enough to get even a second mate's certificate. He thought it an unnecessary waste of time, seeing that he intended to leave the sea as soon as he could attain a pilot's branch. This he succeeded in doing, and had a long and successful ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... the case came up for trial on this October day, the Court House was well filled indeed, but rather on account of the lawyers engaged than because of the matter's intrinsic interest. The British Merchants had retained Mr. Ludwell Cary. The side of the prisoner, mentioning that fact in a pitiful scrawl addressed to the law office of Messrs. Rand and Mocket, found to its somewhat pathetic surprise that Mr. Rand himself would take the case and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... The other was almost covered with writing, scribbled with blue pencil, a pencil which must have been rather blunt, because the marking was heavy, though it showed signs of haste. No one familiar with Eagle March's hand could have failed to recognize it as his, rough and hurried as was the scrawl. ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... and in new ones too, there are inscriptions and inscriptions. We are all familiar with the scrawl of the clown, who has handed down to us his unconsecrated name on the title-page or fly-leaf of some volume of ours otherwise irreproachable. Just a step above him is your fellow who writes some objurgatory caveat against the malappropriator, ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... date to this sad scrawl; but it needed none; for in twenty-four hours after it had arrived at the manse, I had set out on my way to Rosehall. The meeting betwixt the foster-father and the child was, of course, exceedingly affecting. Investigations into the whole matter were renewed, but no other way ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... the Niger on the 27th of June. You must excuse this hasty scrawl, as it is only meant to let you know that I am still alive and going forward in my journey. Please to let Mrs. Dickson know ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park

... Among the multitude of the dead there is no room for the living." It seemed then a foolish memorandum to write, and now, as I look at the half-effaced pencil lines, I wonder why I was not ashamed to write it. Yet there it is before me, a witness to my sensations at the time, and the scrawl has even now the power to bring up to me an unpleasantly vivid memory of ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... graphoidea^, graphomania^; phrenoia^. writer, scribe, amanuensis, scrivener, secretary, clerk, penman, copyist, transcriber, quill driver; stenographer, typewriter, typist; writer for the press &c (author) 593. V. write, pen; copy, engross; write out, write out fair; transcribe; scribble, scrawl, scrabble, scratch; interline; stain paper; write down &c (record) 551; sign &c (attest) 467; enface^. compose, indite, draw up, draft, formulate; dictate; inscribe, throw on paper, dash off; manifold. take up the pen, take pen in hand; shed ink, spill ink, dip one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... answer—I'll see him immediately," nodded Kennedy, tossing the hasty scrawl over to ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... was thinking of it, too, a little sadly, as somewhat later he stood on the stretch of rocks, looking out at the fading west. He was going home to "give up." Only yesterday morning a brief scrawl from Pete Patterson had informed him he would be ready for business next week, and Dan must come back with an answer—"Yes" or "No." So it was good-bye to St. Andrew's for Dan to-night; good-bye to all his hopes and dreams to-morrow. Something seemed to rise in Dan's ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... was back with a pencilled scrawl from Kress to the effect that Lieutenant Stuyvesant was to be permitted to interview the prisoner Murray outside the guard-house, but sentries must be ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... were procured, and, with a great effort, Lotty managed to arrange herself so as to be able to write. She covered four pages with a sad scrawl, closed the envelope, and was about to direct it, ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... and sent them to my love; I praised that fair that none enough could praise; But plaints nor praises could fair Licia move; Above my reach she did her virtues raise, And thus replied: "False Scrawl, untrue thou art, To feign those sighs that nowhere can be found; For half those praises came not from his heart Whose faith and love as yet was never found. Thy master's life, false Scrawl shall ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... of all he held in his hand for several seconds unopened. The envelope was a large one and stiff, as if it contained cardboard. It was directed in an irregular, childish scrawl. Mordaunt, sitting at his writing-table, with his back to his guest, studied it gravely, thoughtfully. Finally very quietly he ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... mantelpiece, on Hagar's unopened letters. At first her eyes wandered over the writing on the uppermost envelope mechanically, then a painful recognition came into them. She had seen that writing before, that slow sliding scrawl unlike any other, never to be mistaken. It turned her sick. Her fingers ran up to the envelope, then drew back. She felt for an instant that she must take it and open it as she stood there. What had the writer of that letter to do ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker

... and the scrawl characteristic of an office boy's chirography proved that his terms at public school had not done Scorch much good. ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe

... in a double-page article in the Sunday supplement of the San Francisco Examiner, and guided himself by that. Three days, at white heat, completed his narrative; but when he had copied it carefully, in a large scrawl that was easy to read, he learned from a rhetoric he picked up in the library that there were such things as paragraphs and quotation marks. He had never thought of such things before; and he promptly set to work writing the article ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... "this letter, which, after all, is but an anonymous scrawl, is not even addressed to you, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... "inside" was all right. Judging from Peggy's crestfallen air, it was all wrong. The note was not written in Lucy's usual regular hand. The letters straggled, the lines zig-zagged across the page, and the name signed was almost an unintelligible scrawl. But Peggy thought less of these superficial matters than of ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... extremely difficult to settle my thoughts upon anything but the scene before me, when I am from home, I am from home so seldom. If any, the least hint crosses me, I will write again, and I very much wish to read your plan, if you could abridge and send it. In this little scrawl you must take the will for the deed, for I most sincerely ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... forgotten beginner's attempt by himself. Whence it came, who sent it, he knows not; he had forgotten its very existence. He read it with curiosity; it was written in a very much better hand than his present scrawl, and was perfectly legible. But readable it was not. There was a great deal of work in it, on an out of the way topic, and the ideas were, perhaps, not quite without novelty at the time of its composition. But it was cramped and ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang

... long since become but a shadow and a name to Cally; she had willed it so, and so it had been. Now, in his own poor scrawl, the ghost of a lover too roughly discarded rose and walked again. And beneath the cheap writing and the unrestrained self-pity, she seemed to plumb for the first time the depths of the boy's present misery. The old story, having struck him down once, had hunted him out and struck ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison



Words linked to "Scrawl" :   scratch, write, cacography, script, hand



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