scuffle
/ˈskʌfəl/ · noun
Meaning
- A rough, disorderly fight or struggle at close quarters.
- Poverty; struggle.
- A child's pinafore or bib.
- To fight or struggle confusedly at close quarters.
- To walk with a shuffling gait.
- To make a living with difficulty, getting by on a low income, to struggle financially.
- A type of hoe, manipulated by both pushing and pulling, with a sharp blade parallel with the worked surface; an instance of this type.
- To work the soil surface for weeding, etc.
Etymology / origin
Possibly of North Germanic/Scandinavian origin; compare Swedish skuff (“a push”) and skuffa (“to push”), from the Proto-Germanic base *skuf- (skuƀ), from Proto-Indo-European *skewbʰ-, see also Lithuanian skùbti (“to hurry”), Polish skubać (“to pluck”), Albanian humb (“to lose”).
- humb(Albanian)→
- skubać(Polish)→
- skùbti(lt)→
- *skewbʰ-(ine-pro)→
- -(gem-pro)→
- skuff(Swedish)→
- -(gmq)→
- scuffle (English)
- Relations: der, cog, der, der, cog, cog, cog
Related words
Sources
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