scrunt
Appearance
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Etymology 1
[edit]Noun
[edit]scrunt (plural scrunts)
- An abrupt, high-pitched sound.
- 1894, Robert Barr, "Held Up," McClure's Magazine, 1893-1894 Dec-May, p. 309:
- Just as they were in the roughest part of the mountains, there was a wild shriek of the whistle, a sudden scrunt of the air-brakes, and the train, with an abruptness that was just short of an accident, stopped.
- 1901, David S. Meldrum, "The Conquest of Charlotte," Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, v.171, 1902 Jan-Jun, pg. 128:
- But Jess would not budge, and all of a sudden I sees a white flash in the dark, and hears a rattle of harness, and a scrunt in the shafts as Jess shook her head clear of the blow.
- 1894, Robert Barr, "Held Up," McClure's Magazine, 1893-1894 Dec-May, p. 309:
Etymology 2
[edit]Noun
[edit]scrunt (plural scrunts)
- A beggar or destitute person.
- 1938, James Bridie, The Last Trump, Constable, page 29:
- It's a fine, ennobling thing, is poverty. It would make me a brutal scrunt, and you a whinging harridan in three years.
Derived terms
[edit]Verb
[edit]scrunt (third-person singular simple present scrunts, present participle scrunting, simple past and past participle scrunted)
- To beg or scrounge.
- 1976 February 2, Alister Hughes, “Love Carefully”, in The Virgin Islands Daily News:
- On the other hand in countries where people scrunt to live, the birth rate is high.
- 1979, Maurice Bishop, Selected Speeches, 1979-1981, Casa de las Américas, pg. 11:
- Four out of every five women are forced to stay at home or scrunt for a meagre existence.
- 1996, Defining Ourselves: Black Writers in the 90s, publ. P. Lang, published 1999, →ISBN, page 69:
- As a woman of color living in the north of Metropole, anything that I did dig up I really had to scrunt for.