Scrambling

How to spell scrambling

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce scrambling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does scrambling mean?

1. verbMoving, climbing, or acting in a hurried, disorganised way, often using the hands.
2. verbCooking beaten eggs while stirring them so they set in soft lumps.

Scrambling in a sentence

• The commuters were scrambling for the last train home.

• She was scrambling four eggs in the pan when the toast popped up.

• We spent the afternoon scrambling over the wet rocks to reach the summit.

• Scrambling the eggs over a low heat keeps them soft and creamy.

Where does scrambling come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Scramble first appears in English in the 1500s, and its exact origin is genuinely uncertain, which is why dictionaries hedge on it. It looks like a frequentative formation, that is, a word built to suggest repeated, scrabbling movement, and it is closely tied to the dialect word 'scramble' alongside relatives such as 'scrabble' and 'scrap'. The likeliest root sits among Low German and northern English dialect words for clawing or grasping awkwardly, capturing the idea of clutching at things while struggling forward. From that physical sense of clambering on hands and feet, the meaning broadened to any hurried, disorderly effort, and then to mixing things up roughly, as in beaten eggs. The -ing ending here is simply the ordinary English participle and gerund suffix added to the verb; the spelling trap to remember is the silent letters of the stem, since 'scramble' keeps its 'b' before 'le' just as 'thumb' and 'lamb' keep theirs.

How the word is built

• scramble (to move or climb hastily, using the hands)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)