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Allin

scroll

nounverbattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//skɹəʊl//
  • United States//skɹoʊl//

A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll.

noun

  1. 1

    A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll.

  2. 2

    An ornament formed of undulations giving off spirals or sprays, usually suggestive of plant form. Roman architectural ornament is largely of some scroll pattern.

  3. 3

    Spirals or sprays in the shape of an actual plant.

    I lose myself in a flawed henna plant jutting toward the scroll. Its rose-pink eyes burst off the stems.

  4. 4

    A mark or flourish added to a person's signature, intended to represent a seal, and in some States allowed as a substitute for a seal. [U.S.] Alexander Mansfield Burrill.

  5. 5

    The carved end of a violin, viola, cello or other stringed instrument, most commonly scroll-shaped but occasionally in the form of a human or animal head.

  6. 6

    A skew surface.

  7. 7

    A kind of sweet roll baked in a somewhat spiral shape.

    I ordered a glass of lemonade and a coffee scroll.

  8. 8

    The incremental movement of graphics on a screen, removing one portion to show the next.

    […] the computer sends orders, via electrical impulses, to recompose the liquid crystal structure inside the cells quickly which results in the familiar smooth scroll of the pointer on your screen.

  9. 9

    A spiral waterway placed round a turbine to regulate the flow.

  10. 10

    A turbinate bone.

  11. 11

    obsoleteA rough draft of anything.

  12. 12

    The act of scrolling.

    I gave the terms and conditions a quick scroll before signing up to the website.

    Silicon Valley’s dirtiest design feature – which is everywhere once you spot it – is the infinite scroll, likened to the “bottomless soup bowl” experiment, in which participants will keep mindlessly eating from a soup bowl if it keeps refilling.

Etymology

From Middle English scrowle, scrolle, from earlier scrowe, scrouwe (influenced by Middle English rolle), from Old French escroe, escrowe, escrouwe (“scroll, strip of parchment”), from Frankish *skrōda (“a shred”), from Proto-Germanic *skraudō, from *skrew- (“to cut; cutting tool”), extension of *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Doublet of shred and escrow.

verb

  1. 1

    To change one's view of data on a computer's display by moving in gradual increments, typically using an input device or touch screen.

    She scrolled the offending image out of view.

    She kept scrolling until she found the desired paragraph.

    Use the stylus to scroll up and down the list or flip through the pages left and right.

    He usually used it to scroll messages across his face.

  2. 2

    To move in or out of view horizontally or vertically.

    The rising credits slowly scrolled off the screen.

    The piano plays on. I watch those little rectangles as they scroll down from the top.

    Pavement scrolled beneath the headlight beams, reminding Emma of a conveyor belt.

  3. 3

    To continuously and aimlessly consume content on social media, especially on websites or apps with a scrolling feed, such as Instagram, TikTok, or X.

    With millions of creators worldwide, many of whom are generating income through brand partnerships, affiliate deals, and platform monetization, influencers are likely popping up any time you pick up a phone to scroll.

  4. 4

    datedTo flood a chat system with numerous lines of text, causing legitimate messages to scroll out of view before they can be read.

    Hey, stop scrolling!

    It's cool but i know why I prefer newsgroups : I just got banned for scrolling or summat : i was typing one word in each message so pppl^([sic]) could read it cos it was going so fast - geez.

    If you want to join this riot, we urge you to! You wont have to worry about being TOSed or reported because there will be no Guides online! So do whatever you want—punt, scroll, tos, just turn AOL into a war zone!

  5. 5

    obsoleteTo draft; to write in rough outline.

Forms

plural
scrolls
past tense
scrolled
past participle
scrolled
present participle
scrolling
third person singular
scrolls
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).