Scrolling

How to spell scrolling

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce scrolling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does scrolling mean?

1. verbMoving displayed text or images steadily across a screen to bring different parts into view.

Scrolling in a sentence

• She spent the whole train ride scrolling through her news feed.

• Endless scrolling before bed was wrecking his sleep.

Where does scrolling come from?

Language of origin: French

The word grows from the noun 'scroll', a rolled length of parchment used before bound books. English took it in the late Middle Ages as 'scrowle', an altered form of 'scrowe', which came through Anglo-Norman 'escroue' meaning a strip or shred of parchment; the same Germanic source also gave us 'shred'. The extra 'l' crept in by association with 'roll', which is fitting since a scroll is something you roll open. For centuries the verb simply meant to write on or unroll such a document. The modern computing sense, moving displayed text or images smoothly up, down, or sideways across a screen, arose in the 1970s and 1980s and is now the dominant everyday meaning, while the spelling keeps both the doubled 'l' from 'roll' and the 'sc' opening from its parchment ancestor.

How the word is built

• scroll (rolled strip of parchment, hence to roll content)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)