English

Verb

scrat ‎(third-person singular simple present scrats, present participle scratting, simple past and past participle scratted)

1. (obsolete) To scratch, to use one's nails or claws.
   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York Review of Books, 2001, p.286:

     Euclio […] as he went from home, seeing a crow scrat upon the muck-hill, returned in all haste, taking it for malum omen, an ill sign […].

2. (obsolete, Britain) To rake; to search.
   • 1978, A.S. Byatt, The Virgin in The Garden, Vintage International 1992, p.89

     He himself had scratted in the thin dust of evangelical tracts.

Etymology 2

Compare Old English scritta ‎(“an hermaphrodite”), Aguano scrut ‎(“a scrub, a low, mean person”).

Noun

scrat ‎(plural scrats)

1. (obsolete) A hermaphrodite.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Skinner to this entry?)

Related terms

• Old Scratch

Anagrams

• carts, C-rats