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scroll

Pronunciation: /skɹəʊl/

The English word “scroll” has 17 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll.
  2. An ornament formed of undulations giving off spirals or sprays, usually suggestive of plant form. Roman architectural ornament is largely of some scroll pattern.
  3. Spirals or sprays in the shape of an actual plant.
  4. A mark or flourish added to a person's signature, intended to represent a seal, and in some States allowed as a substitute for a seal. [U.S.] Alexander Mansfield Burrill.
  5. The carved end of a violin, viola, cello or other stringed instrument, most commonly scroll-shaped but occasionally in the form of a human or animal head.
  6. A skew surface.
  7. A kind of sweet roll baked in a somewhat spiral shape.
  8. The incremental movement of graphics on a screen, removing one portion to show the next.
  9. A spiral waterway placed round a turbine to regulate the flow.
  10. A turbinate bone.
  11. A rough draft of anything.
  12. The act of scrolling.

verb

  1. To change one's view of data on a computer's display by moving in gradual increments, typically using an input device or touch screen.
  2. To move in or out of view horizontally or vertically.
  3. To continuously and aimlessly consume content on social media, especially on websites or apps with a scrolling feed, such as Instagram, TikTok, or X.
  4. To flood a chat system with numerous lines of text, causing legitimate messages to scroll out of view before they can be read.
  5. To draft; to write in rough outline.

Etymology

From Middle English scrowle, scrolle, from earlier scrowe, scrouwe (influenced by Middle English rolle), from Old French escroe, escrowe, escrouwe (“scroll, strip of parchment”), from Frankish *skrōda (“a shred”), from Proto-Germanic *skraudō, from *skrew- (“to cut; cutting tool”), extension of *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Doublet of shred and escrow.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.