Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Sports A play in Rugby in which the two sets of forwards mass together around the ball and, with their heads down, struggle to gain possession of the ball.
- n. Sports The mass or formation of players during such a play.
- n. Chiefly British A disordered or confused situation involving a number of people.
- v. To engage in a scrum.
Wiktionary
- n. A tightly-packed and disorderly crowd of people.
- n. Canada Specifically used in the Canadian media to describe a tightly-packed group of reporters surrounding a member of the Canadian House of Commons while in the Parliament Buildings.
- n. (rugby) In rugby union or rugby league, all the forwards joined together in an organised way. Also known as a scrummage.
WordNet 3.0
- n. (rugby) the method of beginning play in which the forwards of each team crouch side by side with locked arms; play starts when the ball is thrown in between them and the two sides compete for possession
Etymologies
- From "scrummage", from "scrimmage" (The Heritage Illustrated Dictionary of the English Language) (Wiktionary)
- Short for scrummage. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Aviva Premiership clubs name an extra front-row player on their bench to help ensure that the scrum is a fair contest should props have to be replaced.”
The Guardian: Newcastle substitutions against Northampton investigated by RFU
“` ` The number of times he took the ball away from people in a scrum is an invaluable asset. '”
“This has all culminated in a label scrum, the likes of which have not been seen in years.”
“They are about as accurate as the Premier's comments on the secret bonus cash he called the scrum to discuss in the first place.”
“The formation rugby is famous for is called a scrum, which is where a bound group of players from each team form a tunnel or lane.”
“Every morning, all employees meet for a "scrum" -- a short get-together where they're briefed on company news, do yogalike exercises and then play a quick brain-rousing game that forces them to think on their feet.”
“We have what's called a "scrum," and we just set our objectives for the next twenty-four hours, the next week, or whatever it is, and we gradually developed the thing over time.”
“In the middle of the scrum is my own boy, his face open, laughing.”
“Fox cameras faithfully captured what they kept calling a scrum of reporters, sending nearly no one in the waiting room to their pocket dictionaries.”
Brian Ross: Fox News Ate My Brain (I Swear!) - Of Chaos Theory & Roland Burris
“In the middle of that scrum, that is Howard K. Stern, the former companion to Anna Nicole Smith.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘scrum’.
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The weird, the wonderful and the plai...
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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The Whole Ball of Wax
Feel free to wax poetic.
the whole ball of..., wax poetic, wax, beeswax, ambergris, cedar waxwing, sealing wax, earwax, paraffin, bougie, epicuticular wax, waxing gibbous moon and 192 more...
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scraps
scray, scramble, scraggly, scrape, scree, scrap, scrape by, scratch, scratch out, scratch race, scratch up, scranny and 61 more...
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common/uncommon GRE
Combination some common, some uncommon preparation of GRE words.
thwart, schmooze, siren, ebullient, eclectic, efficacy, adorn, felicitous, grandiloquent, eloquence, epitomize, vilify and 10 more...
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Fun Words
Words that are fun to say....
gobbledygook, jings, crivens, hullabaloo, wheech, brouhaha, pizzazz, harum-scarum, namby-pamby, pussyfoot, frippery, pitter-patter and 333 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
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annscann's list
My words, generally
bavarois, bawbee, bawd, bawdry, libertine, russophobe, rubicund, gossamer, persnickety, claptrap, gesticulate, schadenfreudian and 199 more...
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Collage's Words
subtle, calamity, impale, qat, painterly, piebald, surly, nihilistic, repine, slake, larder, sepulchre and 349 more...
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Thrown - about tossed - Words
bal-; bol-; -bol; -ble and incau(gh)tious others
ballistic, ballad, symbol, bolide, ballet, problem, ball, parabola, parable, amphibole, boule, diabolical and 184 more...
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Time Out New York
words looked up while copyediting for this magazine
tonsorial, nudnick, doyenne, lothario, ebon, compere, cloaca, carom, evince, jocosity, profligacy, favela and 110 more...
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polysyllabary
high dudgeon, plumb, scarify, scabrous, zero-sum game, grind, sesquipedaliophobia, scraffito, shekel, luthier, baffle, conflate and 80 more...
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The Diamond Age
Words from the novel by Neal Stephenson.
primer, nanosite, fabricule, aether, artifex, diamondoid, transpicuous, source, tetrahedral, lithocule, nanophone, espadrille and 68 more...
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emcerlain's Words
buxom, cornucopia, plethora, ostensibly, fracas, scrum, furball, anecdote, sanction, asymmetric, isometric, aerobic and 8 more...
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Hodgepodge
hodgepodge, squelchy, coddle, katydid, bubkes, zamboni, succotash, megaphone, subbookkeeper, joshing, emo, truckle and 30 more...
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vocab 1
scrum, indignation, nascent, bastion, patron, mire, restive, paragon, devoid, dacha, decreipt, lest and 19 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for scrum.
tumbel a scrum of readings (theater) Mar 17, 2010
oroboros mmmmmmm...scrumptious! Mar 17, 2007
brtom "Heave to. Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! You hurt? Most amazingly sorry!"
Joyce, Ulysses, 14 Jan 27, 2007