scrabble

A group of people scrabble on the ground, sifting through the soil.

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2025

Lee wanted wealth and stability, not to scrabble around in obscurity hoping to beat impossibly long odds.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2024

Don’t just rely on your phone’s memory; you might not be the one making the phone call and it saves time not to have to scrabble around.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 20, 2023

"If they leave, either the jobs disappear entirely, or factories scrabble to receive orders from footloose buying agents who care only about cheap labour and do not worry about factory conditions," Bowman told Reuters.

From Reuters ● Aug. 16, 2023

I scrabble for the device, then back out of the room and pull the door all the way shut behind me, panting.

From "Fast Pitch" by Nic Stone

When that happens, rather than tell her friends how she feels, she scrabbles around for extra money.

From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026

At the novel’s outset, Ezra scrabbles through his world with honest hunger and understandable, if sometimes pedantic, disdain for those with more than him.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 7, 2023

But in one instance, a dog uses Halle Berry’s back as a springboard, then scrabbles up the wall to the second story and attacks a gunman on a balcony.

From Slate ● May 16, 2019

As his wife scrabbles with angry protesters and gripes about her compromised marriage, he is sequestered in the bathroom, represented only by a mordant song that his aide-de-camp sings on his behalf:

From The New Yorker ● May 9, 2016

He scrabbles as he falls and grabs the back of the wooden chair.

From "Invisible Inkling" by Emily Jenkins

As she scrabbled for a laser pointer in her large handbag, her coloratura was comically on point, though she was inaudible in her middle range during the cabaletta.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2025

Her rivals cantered on as she scrabbled on the floor.

From BBC ● Jan. 4, 2022

A dog’s scrabbled paw prints, a bobcat at best.

From Slate ● Jun. 19, 2018

Using picks, shovels and hands, they scrabbled through the dust and debris of crumbled homes.

From New York Times ● Aug. 24, 2016

The ghouls scrabbled back down the rocky cliffs to the road, beneath a sky the color of bad blood, and they headed towards Ghulheim.

From "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman

The second senior resignation in two days leaves Sir Keir scrabbling to shore up his position as prime minister following the resignation of his top adviser McSweeney on Sunday.

From BBC ● Feb. 9, 2026

Europe’s scrabbling together of funds to put into the pot is important here.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 30, 2025

This is, though, where much of Europe has been for some time: scrabbling around for scraps from the Premier League’s table.

From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2024

When few other animals are out and about, wolverines are scrabbling up frozen slopes with their crampon-like claws and crunching through frozen bones of carrion dug out of snow.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 29, 2023

I’m scrabbling around in the postcards, and then something bites me and I rock back on my heels with a yelp.

From "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins