▪ I. † scraw, n.1 north. Obs.
Also 5 skraw.
[a. ON. skrá a dry skin, a scroll.]
A scroll or tag of parchment or leather.
| c 1460 Towneley Myst. xxiii. 516 How felowse, se ye not yond skraw? It is writen yonder within a thraw. 1483 Cath. Angl. 325/2 A Scrawe.., cedula. a 1641 Spelman Glossarium (1664) 459 Pictatium est epistola brevis & modica; vel schedula de membrana excisa; vel illa particula corii, quæ soleæ repeciatæ insuta est... Anglicè A scraw, or a speck, or a clout of a shoo. |
▪ II. scraw, n.2 dial. (Anglo-Irish, Sc., Manx.)
(skrɔː)
Also 8 scra, 9 scraa.
[a. Irish and Gael. sgrath, pronounced (skrɑː).]
1. A turf used for covering the roof of a hovel beneath the thatch, or for burning.
| 1725 Swift Drapier's Let. vii. Wks. 1755 V. ii. 152 That odious custom..of cutting scraws (as they call them) which is flaying off the green surface of the ground to cover their cabins, or make up their ditches. 1823 Ann. Reg., Chron. 37 Witness dug down, and on the rim of the ground got a scraw, under which he discovered a body stark naked. 1894 Hall Caine Manxman i. iv. 19 Fixing her hazy eyes on the scraas under the thatch. |
† 2. A thin covering of grass-grown soil formed upon the surface of a bog. Obs.
| 1776 G. Semple Building in Water 120 This Bog is generally covered over with a Scraw, or Scurff of mossy Grass. 1820 M. Edgeworth Mem. R. L. Edgeworth II. 316 A slight surface of peat heath or grass, called by the common people a shaking scraw. |
3. Comb., as scraw-spade; † scraw-built adj.
| 1789 D. Davidson Seasons, Spring 42 Down frae the scra-built shed the swallows pop. 1830 Carleton Traits (1843) I. 294 A scraw-spade is an instrument resembling the letter T, with an iron plate at the lower end, considerably bent, and well adapted to the purpose for which it is intended [cutting sods]. |
▪ III. † scraw, n.3 Obs.
Also 6 skralle.
[? a. Du. schraag trestle.]
A frame upon which textile fabrics are hung to dry.
| c 1563 Churchw. Acc. St. Dunstan, Canterbury (MS.), Item solde [a] skralle for a Towell. 1791 Hamilton Berthollet's Dyeing I. ii. ii. ii. 161 A kind of broad ladder..called a scraw or scray, on which the fleece is drained. 1837 Whittock Bk. Trades (1842) 192 In dyeing wool in the fleece, a kind of broad ladder with very close rounds, called by the Dyers of this country, a ‘scraw’ or ‘scray’ is used. |
▪ IV. † scraw, v. Obs. rare—1.
[Echoic: cf. L. screāre.]
intr. To clear the throat, to ‘hawk’. Hence † ˈscrawing vbl. n.
| 1656 Ridgley Pract. Physick 38 If it come forth by spitting alone, it proceeds from the gums; if by scrawing from the Throat [etc.]. |