Made marks or cuts on a surface with something sharp or rough, or rubbed skin with fingernails to relieve itching.
From Middle English 'scratchen,' possibly from Old Norse 'skratta' or a combination of 'scrat' (to scrape) and 'scratch' sounds. First recorded in the 1500s. The word is likely imitative of the actual sound of scratching.
The word 'scratch' is genuinely imitative—it sounds like what it describes! Interestingly, 'starting from scratch' evolved from the cricket/racing term where a line (scratch) was drawn as the starting point, so 'from scratch' literally means from the marked line.
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