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Scratch can be a verb, an adjective or a noun.

scratch used as a verb:

  1. To rub a surface with a sharp object, especially by a living creature to remove itching with nails, claws, etc.
    "Could you please scratch my back?"
  2. To rub the skin with rough material causing a sensation of irritation.
    "I don't like that new scarf because it scratches my neck."
  3. To mark a surface with a sharp object, thereby leaving a scratch (noun).
    "A real diamond can easily scratch a pane of glass."
  4. To remove, ignore or delete.
    "Scratch what I said earlier; I was wrong."
  5. To produce a distinctive sound on a turntable, by moving a vinyl record back and forth while manipulating the crossfader. See scratching
  6. To commit a foul in pool, as where the cue ball is put into a pocket or jumps off the table.
    "Embarrassingly, he scratched on the break, popping the cue completely off the table."
  7. A technical error of touching or surpassing the starting mark prior to the official start signal in the sporting events long jump (also called running broad jump), standing broad jump, discus, hammer throw, shot put, and similar events. Originally the starting mark was a scratch on the ground but now a board or precisely indicated mark.
  8. To remove from a list.
    "When the favorite was scratched from the race, there was a riot at the betting windows."

Verbs are action words and state of being words. Examples of action words are: ran, attacking, dreamed. Examples of "state of being" words are: is, was, be. Learn more →

scratch used as an adjective:

  1. For or consisting of preliminary or tentative, incomplete, etc. work.
    "This is scratch paper, so go ahead and scribble whatever you want on it."
  2. Relating to a data structure or recording medium attached to a machine for testing or temporary-use purposes.
  3. A very good player who does not have a handicap, i.e. one who competes without the benefit of a variation in scoring based on the player's ability.

Adjectives are are describing words. An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun (examples: small, scary, silly). Adjectives make the meaning of a noun more precise. Learn more →

scratch used as a noun:

  1. A disruption, mark or shallow cut on a surface made by scratching.
    "I can’t believe there is a scratch in the paint already."
  2. An act of scratching the skin to alleviate an itch or irritation.
    "The dog sat up and had a good scratch."
  3. A starting line (originally and simply, a line scratched in the ground).
  4. A foul in pool, as where the cue ball is put into a pocket or jumps off the table.
  5. money
    "I need a little scratch."

Nouns are naming words. They are used to represent a person (soldier, Jamie), place (Germany, beach), thing (telephone, mirror), quality (hardness, courage), or an action (a run, a punch). Learn more →

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What type of word is scratch?

As detailed above, 'scratch' can be a verb, an adjective or a noun. Here are some examples of its usage:
  1. Verb usage: Could you please scratch my back?
  2. Verb usage: I don't like that new scarf because it scratches my neck.
  3. Verb usage: A real diamond can easily scratch a pane of glass.
  4. Verb usage: Scratch what I said earlier; I was wrong.
  5. Verb usage: Embarrassingly, he scratched on the break, popping the cue completely off the table.
  6. Verb usage: When the favorite was scratched from the race, there was a riot at the betting windows.
  7. Adjective usage: This is scratch paper, so go ahead and scribble whatever you want on it.
  8. Noun usage: I can’t believe there is a scratch in the paint already.
  9. Noun usage: Her skin was covered with tiny scratches.
  10. Noun usage: The dog sat up and had a good scratch.
  11. Noun usage: I need a little scratch.

Unfortunately, with the current database that runs this site, I don't have data about which senses of scratch are used most commonly. I've got ideas about how to fix this but will need to find a source of "sense" frequencies. Hopefully there's enough info above to help you understand the part of speech of scratch, and guess at its most common usage.

Word Type

For those interested in a little info about this site: it's a side project that I developed while working on Describing Words and Related Words. Both of those projects are based around words, but have much grander goals. I had an idea for a website that simply explains the word types of the words that you search for - just like a dictionary, but focussed on the part of speech of the words. And since I already had a lot of the infrastructure in place from the other two sites, I figured it wouldn't be too much more work to get this up and running.

The dictionary is based on the amazing Wiktionary project by wikimedia. I initially started with WordNet, but then realised that it was missing many types of words/lemma (determiners, pronouns, abbreviations, and many more). This caused me to investigate the 1913 edition of Websters Dictionary - which is now in the public domain. However, after a day's work wrangling it into a database I realised that there were far too many errors (especially with the part-of-speech tagging) for it to be viable for Word Type.

Finally, I went back to Wiktionary - which I already knew about, but had been avoiding because it's not properly structured for parsing. That's when I stumbled across the UBY project - an amazing project which needs more recognition. The researchers have parsed the whole of Wiktionary and other sources, and compiled everything into a single unified resource. I simply extracted the Wiktionary entries and threw them into this interface! So it took a little more work than expected, but I'm happy I kept at it after the first couple of blunders.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: the UBY project (mentioned above), @mongodb and express.js.

Currently, this is based on a version of wiktionary which is a few years old. I plan to update it to a newer version soon and that update should bring in a bunch of new word senses for many words (or more accurately, lemma).

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