How to Use scrabble in a Sentence

scrabble

verb

• He scrabbled at the slippery rock.
• She scrabbled around in her handbag for a pen.
• O’Hara sings all but four of the play’s songs, and her voice is the kind of instrument that sends people scrabbling for metaphors.
  — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 28 Jan. 2024
• Philip Howard Sauer and four fellow Marines began to scrabble toward the crest of Hill 861.
  — Carl Prine, sandiegouniontribune.com, 23 Apr. 2018
• The male nipped my ankles and scrabbled over my back, pushing me below the surface.
  — Jennifer Hayes, National Geographic, 19 Dec. 2019
• Homer and Marge would be somewhere in their 60s, probably still scrabbling to make ends meet.
  — Todd Vanderwerff, Vox, 15 Apr. 2018
• This was enough for Harry Redknapp to roll down the window and scrabble around in his car’s filthy ashtray for some loose change.
  — SI.com, 26 Apr. 2018
• During cruising, the only sound was the muted crunch of Pirelli winter tires scrabbling for grip.
  — Don Sherman, Car and Driver, 5 July 2017
• During these past two years, the U.K. has been scrabbling to figure out the terms under which Brexit would happen.
  — Rachel Epstein, Marie Claire, 4 Feb. 2019
• Wild turkeys would emerge out of nowhere, scrabbling ahead of us in a conga line before flying into the trees.
  — Chris Bohjalian, Washington Post, 9 Nov. 2023
• People weren’t exactly scrabbling to fight over a seat.
  — Jonathan Vatner, New York Times, 3 Jan. 2020
• Six robots at a time would square off in the arena, scrabbling at yellow milk crates and trying to lift them onto a 6-foot teeter totter.
  — Matthew Ormseth, courant.com, 8 Apr. 2018
• Now, airports from New Zealand to Canada are scrabbling for public support in a bid to remain open.
  — Natasha Frost, Quartz, 26 Mar. 2020
• The dog comes into being as a puppy, scrabbling with its littermates.
  — Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, 28 Jan. 2017
• Presumably this means that, unlike the previous rear-wheel-drive Roadster, the next car will find all four wheels scrabbling for purchase while one’s corneas are pinned to the back of one’s skull.
  — Davey G. Johnson, Car and Driver, 14 July 2017
• In some places, punches were thrown, hair was pulled, faces were scratched and elderly customers were trampled underfoot as shoppers scrabbled to grab jars of the spread.
  — Kim Willsher, latimes.com, 26 Jan. 2018
• The series’ first season scrabbled around looking for a point for too long, before zeroing in on some ideas about the nature of consciousness.
  — Todd Vanderwerff, Vox, 18 Apr. 2018
• On Tuesday, evacuees still shut out of the islands scrabbled at every piece of news about unheard-from friends, family, boats and houses.
  — Alan Blinder, Marc Santora and Vivian Yee, New York Times, 12 Sep. 2017
• Videos have shown stampedes breaking out, and hundreds of people crushed together scrabbling for food.
  — Patrick Reevell, ABC News, 31 Jan. 2024
• The driver, checks the coast is clear, but can't see the crouching boy and pulls away - over the lad, who scrabbles frantically for a few seconds before disappearing beneath the SUV.
  — Swns - Joe Smith, Fox News, 27 Sep. 2018
• Watch the hooves of a dying creature frantically scrabbling to escape, trying to obey signals from its brain that its body can no longer execute.
  — David E. Petzal, Field & Stream, 3 Dec. 2019
• At the novel’s outset, Ezra scrabbles through his world with honest hunger and understandable, if sometimes pedantic, disdain for those with more than him.
  — Casey McQuiston, Washington Post, 7 Mar. 2023
• President Donald Trump has been hunting for reasons to extract trade concessions from the European Union with the eagerness of a dog scrabbling around for a bone buried in the back yard.
  — Washington Post, 11 July 2019
• Whereas for most of human civilization, people have had to scrabble just to exist, in the past 100 years or so the pendulum has swung—at least for those privileged few of us who live in first world countries.
  — Redbook, 23 June 2011
• The plucky cable cars, scrabbling up its impossible hillsides.
  — Mark Z. Barabak, latimes.com, 21 Dec. 2017
• The new Tomb Raider movie, which comes out on Friday, is based on the excellent 2013 video game reboot, which reimagines Lara as a rookie archaeologist who spends most of the narrative just scrabbling to survive.
  — Scott Meslow, GQ, 14 Mar. 2018
• My silicon chip, my ambition silicon chip, has been programmed to try and scrabble my way up this cursus honorum, this ladder of things. . . .
  — Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 13 June 2019
• Nollsch recalled how the sound of someone scaling the fence was followed by what sounded like a person falling into bushes, then scrabbling to get out, according to sheriff's documents.
  — Marjie Lundstrom and Sam Stanton, sacbee, 14 May 2018
• The shimmering black-and-white cinematography by Mart Taniel tracks the connections among a village's wolves and witches, landed gentry and scrabbling farmers.
  — Sheri Linden, latimes.com, 1 Mar. 2018
• Ruthie, separated from her husband, is scrabbling to keep her toehold in the middle class after being forced out of her job at a local museum by a conniving board member.
  — New York Times, 17 May 2018

Last Updated: 5 Sep 2024