To scratch or grope about frantically with one's hands. Also refers to the popular word-forming board game.
From Dutch 'schrabben' meaning 'to scrape' or 'scratch', related to Middle Low German 'schrabbelen'. The game sense emerged in the 1940s when Alfred Butts created the crossword game, originally called 'Lexiko'.
The word beautifully captures both physical scrambling and mental scrambling - when you're desperately searching for something with your hands, you're doing the same frantic motion as when your brain scrambles for words in the game. The game's name perfectly reflects the cognitive experience of frantically arranging letter tiles.
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