▪ I. scranch, n. dial.
(skrɔːnʃ)
[f. scranch v.]
A ‘scranching’ noise or sound.
| 1881 T. E. Brown Fo'c's'le Yarns 188 It [sc. the storm] come With a rip and a roar,..Rip-rip-rip—you know the scranch of it. |
▪ II. scranch, v. Obs. exc. dial.
(skrɔːnʃ)
Also scraunch.
[App. an onomatopœic formation, related to cranch v. (which is slightly later in our quots.); cf. crunch, scrunch vbs., and scr- 2.
Mod.Du. and LG. have a vb. of similar form and sense: schransen to eat heartily, in 16th c. (Kilian) schrantsen, ‘mandere, dentibus frangere’, W. Flem. schranzen to crunch, chew noisily.]
1. trans. = crunch v. 1.
| 1620 Shelton Quixote ii. xiii. 78 Sancho fell to, without inuitation, and champed his bits in the darke, as if he had scraunched knotted cordes. 1658 Rowland Moufet's Theat. Ins. 983 Locusts..have teeth..with which they easily eat ears of corn, and scranch them with a great noise. 1672 Marvell Reh. Transp. i. 84 [He] epicurizes upon burning Coals, drinks healths in scalding Brimstone, scraunches the Glasses for his Desart. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), To Scranch, to crunch, crack, or break any hard thing between the Teeth. 1707 Curios. in Husb. & Gard. 72 We see the Swine scranching the Acorns. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 431 ¶3, I then took a strange Hankering to Coals; I fell to scranching 'em. 1755 Johnson, To Scranch, To grind somewhat crackling between the teeth. The Scots retain it. 1785 [R. Graves] Eugenius I. vi. 35 Flora..scranching her apple. 1823 Moor Suffolk Words, Skranch, the act of chewing or munching any thing that sounds short under the tooth, green apples, raw carrots, hard biscuits, &c. ‘How 'a dew skransh em’. 1894 Northumb. Gloss., Scranch, scrunch, to grind with a crackling noise between the teeth. |
2. = crunch v. 2.
| 1845 Judd Margaret i. xvii. (1874) 158 A troop of boys and girls..were coming up the hill, goring and scranching the crust [of the snow] with their iron corks. 1853 G. J. Cayley Las Alforjas I. 261 [It] broke, being scranched in my pocket, when I fell off pony-back. |
Hence ˈscranching vbl. n. and ppl. a.
| 1846 W. Sandys [Jan Treenoodle] Spec. Cornish Dial. 38 (E.D.D.) Apples ripe for scranching. 1854 A. E. Baker Northampt. Gloss. s.v. Scraunch, A bow drawn in, an awkward, unskilful manner across a violin makes a scraunching noise. |