scrunt

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skɹʌnt/

• Audio (US)

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  • Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -ʌnt

Etymology 1

Onomatopoetic.

Noun

scrunt (plural scrunts)

1. 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.

   • 2004, George Douglas Brown, The House with the Green Shutters, Kessinger Publishing, →ISBN, page 243:

     They rose, and the scrunt of Janet's chair on the floor, when she pushed it behind her, sent a thrilling shiver through her body, so tense was her mood.

Etymology 2

A beggar boy with basket., by Ivan Tvorozhnikov

Noun

scrunt (plural scrunts)

1. 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.

   • 1987, David Rabe, Hurlyburly: A Play, publ. Samuel French, Inc., →ISBN, page 112:

     And without my work what am I but an unemployed scrunt on the meat market of the streets?

   • 2005, Ronan O'Donnell, The Doll Tower, →ISBN, page 20:

     Not slum-dweller socialist but high-class fanny socialist. [...] Socialism that drinks wine - a single bottle costs a year's pay to a fuckin scrunt like Uxbridge.

Derived terms

• scrunty

Verb

scrunt (third-person singular simple present scrunts, present participle scrunting, simple past and past participle scrunted)

1. 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.