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scrap

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A piece of deep-fried batter left over from frying fish, sometimes sold with chips.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

skrap
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈskɹæp

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. UKin the plural

    A piece of deep-fried batter left over from frying fish, sometimes sold with chips.

  2. A small piece of something that is left over after the rest has been used

    “She jotted it on a scrap of paper.”

  3. uncountable

    Discarded objects (especially metal) that may be dismantled to recover their constituent materials, junk.

  4. The crisp substance that remains after drying out animal fat.

  5. A (small) piece; a fragment; a detached, incomplete portion.

  6. A fight, tussle, skirmish.

verb

  1. transitive

    To discard; to get rid of.

  2. Dispose of (something useless or old)

  3. To fight

  4. transitiveof a project or plan

    To stop working on indefinitely.

  5. Make into scrap or refuse

    “Scrap the old airplane and sell the parts.”

  6. transitive

    To dispose of at a scrapyard.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: (UK, in the plural) A piece of deep-fried batter left over from frying fish, sometimes sold with chips.

Used this way, scrap is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

How It’s Used

The word’s distinct uses, one example each.

  • Smallnoun

    “She jotted it on a scrap of paper.”

  • Makeverb

    “Scrap the old airplane and sell the parts.”

More ways to use scrap

  • “She jotted it on a scrap of paper.”noun
  • “Scrap the old airplane and sell the parts.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Small / loose

steel scrap

Discarded

scrap metalscrap heap

Crisp

scrap wood

Other combinations

scrap ironscrap paperscrap bookscrap value

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • scrapsnounPlural form

    Food that is discarded (as from a kitchen).

  • scrapingnounInflected form

    A fragment scraped off of something and collected.

  • scrapernounInflected form

    Any of various hand tools for scraping.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • scrap ironnounCompound term

    Iron to be melted again and reworked.

  • scrap metalnounCompound term

    Discarded metal suitable for reprocessing.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.