Scrabble

A brand name, from the verb scrabble, James Brunot's 1948 rebranding of Alfred Butts's 1938 game Criss-Crosswords.

• IPA^(key): /ˈskɹæ.bəl/

• Audio (southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æbəl
• Hyphenation: Scrab‧ble

Scrabble

1. A board game in which players draw letter tiles and take turns to make interlocking words like a crossword, scoring points according to the letters played and their positions on the board.
   • 1985, Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, →ISBN:

     So that's what's in the forbidden room! Scrabble! I want to laugh […] This was once the game of old women, old men, in the summers or in retirement villas, to be played when there was nothing good on television. Or of adolescents, once, long long ago. […] Now of course it's something different […] It's as if he's offered me drugs.

   • 2000, Eric T. Olson; Tammy Perry Olson, Real-Life Math: Statistics, Walch Publishing,, →ISBN, page 56:

     Start by asking students if they ever watch Wheel of Fortune, or play games like Hangman or Scrabble.® Ask whether they have ever noticed any patterns in the frequency with which letters appear.

   • 2012 August 18, Bill Kurtis, “Listener Limerick Challenge”, Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!, National Public Radio:

     At the tournament level I dabble
     But my tiles show a meaningless babble
     I filled up my ranks
     With a few extra blanks
     And got busted for cheating at Scrabble

• cabblers, clabbers, crabbles

From English Scrabble.

• IPA^(key): /ˈskrɑbːle/, [ˈs̠krɑbːle̞]

Scrabble

1. Scrabble (board game)

If a plural form is needed, it is better to use the term Scrabble-peli ("game of Scrabble") than Scrabble.

Unadapted borrowing from English Scrabble.

Scrabble m

1. Scrabble (board game with interlocking words)