Dictionary

Scrabble en · PROPN

Pronunciation

• /ˈskɹæ.bəl/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

A brand name, from the verb scrabble, James Brunot's rebranding (1948) of Alfred Butts's game Criss-Crosswords (1938).

Meanings

1. A board game in which players draw letter tiles and take turns to make interlocking words like a crossword, scoring points according to the letters played and their positions on the board.
   • So that's what's in the forbidden room! Scrabble! I want to laugh, shriek with laughter, fall off my chair. This was once the game of old women, old men, in the summers or in retirement villas, to be played when there was nothing good on television. Or of adolescents, once, long long ago. […] Now of course it's something different. Now it's forbidden, for us. 1985, Margaret Atwood, “Birth Day”, in The Handmaid’s Tale, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland and Stewart, →ISBN, pages 148–149:
   • At the tournament level I dabble / But my tiles show a meaningless babble / I filled up my ranks / With a few extra blanks / And got busted for cheating at Scrabble 2012 August 18, Bill Kurtis, “Listener Limerick Challenge”, Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!, National Public Radio
   • Start by asking students if they ever watch Wheel of Fortune, or play games like Hangman or Scrabble.® Ask whether they have ever noticed any patterns in the frequency with which letters appear. 2000, Eric T. Olson, Tammy Perry Olson, Real-Life Math: Statistics, Walch Publishing,, →ISBN, page 56:

Deriveds

Scrabblist · Scrabbler · Scrabbly

Translations (24)

is Skrafl (board game with interlocking words) · de Scrabble (board game with interlocking words) · ru Словоде́л (board game with interlocking words) · tr Karalama (board game with interlocking words) · pl Scrabble (board game with interlocking words) · it Scarabeo (board game with interlocking words) · fi Scrabble (board game with interlocking words) · he שַׁבֵּץ נָא (board game with interlocking words) · gl Scrabble (board game with interlocking words) · nl scrabble (board game with interlocking words) · sv Scrabble (board game with interlocking words) · cmn 拼字游戏 (board game with interlocking words) · mr स्क्रॅबल (board game with interlocking words) · ro Scrabble (board game with interlocking words) · sl Šopi (board game with interlocking words) · tr Dizmece (board game with interlocking words) · pt Scrabble (board game with interlocking words) · fr Scrabble (board game with interlocking words) · eo Skrablo (board game with interlocking words) · fi Riti-Rati sanapeli (board game with interlocking words) · es Scrabble (board game with interlocking words) · ru Эруди́т (board game with interlocking words) · ru Скрэббл (board game with interlocking words) · hu Scrabble (board game with interlocking words)