scroll

English

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.

Pronunciation

• enPR: skrōl, IPA^(key): /skɹoʊl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊl

Noun

scroll (plural scrolls)

1. A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll.
2. (architecture) 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. Spirals or sprays in the shape of an actual plant.
   • 1985, Peter Balakian, “The Oriental Rug”, in Robert Pack, Jay Parini, editors, Introspections: American poets on one of their own poems, Hanover and London: University Press of New England for Middlebury College Press, published 1997, →ISBN, page 31:

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

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. Alexander Mansfield Burrill.
5. (lutherie) 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. (geometry) A skew surface.
7. (cooking) A kind of sweet roll baked in a somewhat spiral shape.

   I ordered a glass of lemonade and a coffee scroll.

8. (computer graphics) The incremental movement of graphics on a screen, removing one portion to show the next.
   • 2005, Alberto de Lózar Muñoz, Liquid Crystal Dynamics: Defects, Walls and Gels, page 1:

     […] 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. (hydraulics) A spiral waterway placed round a turbine to regulate the flow.
10. (anatomy) A turbinate bone.

Translations

Verb

scroll (third-person singular simple present scrolls, present participle scrolling, simple past and past participle scrolled)

1. (transitive, computing, graphical user interface) To change one's view of data on a computer's display by moving in gradual increments, typically using a scroll bar or a scroll wheel..

   Coordinate term: swipe

   She scrolled the offending image out of view.

2. (intransitive) To move in or out of view horizontally or vertically.

   The rising credits slowly scrolled off the screen.

   • 2018, Darrin Doyle, Scoundrels Among Us: Stories:

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

3. (Internet, intransitive, dated) To 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!

   • 1998, rOOth, “Brain's chat”, in alt.music.queen (Usenet):

     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 could read it cos it was going so fast - geez.

   • 2003, Michael Newton, The Encyclopedia of High-tech Crime and Crime-fighting‎, AOL Riot on June 1, 1998, page 21:

     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!

Descendants

• → Danish: scrolle
• → Icelandic: skrolla
• → German: scrollen

Translations

Derived terms

Anagrams

• Crolls

Spanish

Noun

scroll m (plural scrolls)

1. (computer games) scroll