1(especially of a fabric or garment) having a rough, uncomfortable texture and tending to cause itching or discomfort.

1. 1.1 (of a voice or sound) rough; grating.
   she dropped her voice to a scratchy whisper

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Her regularly soft voice is scratchy, disclosing the unspoken knowledge of sleepless nights and drowsy days.
   • The singer's scratchy voice and world-weary acoustic songs are nastily refreshing, and his lyrics are positively bewitching.
   • It was a really long song, and his singing voice was scratchy and cracked every few seconds.
   • ‘Much,’ was the answer, but Stef's voice was still scratchy, and didn't sound much like him at all.
   • He winced, still recalling her scratchy laughter and screeching voice.
   • After he chewed it for a few moments, Frank said in a deep, scratchy voice, ‘Thank you!’
   • Her voice was still scratchy from sleep though.
   • While I sat up all night in fear of a cracker-nibbling rat, trying to watch TV and ignore the ludicrously loud scratchy noises, I was contemplating my happiness.
   • The reporter, in his scratchy voice, asked her to retell her story.
   • ‘Sire, phase one of the plan is completed,’ the monster snarled in his scratchy voice.
   • ‘C'mere horsey,’ the woman called in a harsh, scratchy voice.
   • When he talks his voice is scratchy and foreign to me.
   • She hands me the cell phone and a small, scratchy voice apologizes but says that after a trip to the doctor and a chance to revive, she will see me at her home.
   • ‘Water please,’ she managed to say in a scratchy voice.
   • Music and lights and laughter, scratchy laughter that even in its ugliness sounded happier than mine.
   • The father asked in a scratchy voice, ‘Why was I not told of this?’
   • ‘I look forward to it, then,’ came a soft and scratchy voice from behind.
   • ‘Great outfit,’ Joey said disguising his voice with scratchy sounds.
   • His scratchy voice was meant to sing blues, though, and he'd sound like he was singing the blues no matter what type of music he's singing.
   • You could tell because his voice is very scratchy from all the smoking he did in his youth.

   Synonyms

   harsh, strident, screeching, squawky, squawking, sharp, grating, discordant, dissonant, inharmonious, unmelodious, jarring, brassy
2. 1.2 (of a record) making a crackling or rough sound because of scratches on the surface.
   loudspeakers blaring a scratchy record

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The songs on the album were all scratchy, new-wavey and sounded like they had been recorded in an upturned tin bath.
   • Skipping over the scratchy part, she began to sing with the record, her voice throaty, a low rasp.
   • Previously, many people had marvelled at the fact that using a steel needle, a revolving table and a horn you could hear a scratchy and very constrained recording of music or song.
   • My parents also flinched when I put on my scratchy gramophone records of German symphonies, and prepared for complaints from the neighbours.
   • When I was a kid in the fifties, the whole of our primary school would gather on the lawn while a bugle played off a scratchy record and the Head read the obligatory poem.
   • The only copy I had of the album was an old tattered cassette I recorded from my college radio station's scratchy vinyl copy.
   • We had a few scratchy records, a disco deck, a microphone, a small transmitter and a desire in our hearts to try to create something that people would be proud of.
   • I've heard guys in New York who sound just like Charlie Parker, but it's like a scratchy record of Parker.
   • I was recording the analog noise between tracks on a scratchy old copy of Karl Muck conducting Parzifal with the Bayreuth Festival Chorus onto a cassette tape.
   • Over and over he plays a scratchy recording of the sparrow's call.
   • None of the members of the band knew the instrument firsthand; Mr. Richmond learned how to play it from scratchy old records.
   • Thoughtless musical parasites nearly brought the entire record industry to its knees by recording scratchy vinyl or crackly medium wave onto hissy cassettes.
   • I bought Toast 4.0 for the Mac, since it's good for cleaning up old scratchy records and transferring them to CDs.
   • He was inspired to try his hand at poetry in high school, when he bought a scratchy Dylan Thomas record at a garage sale.
   • Medicine was hard, and he should work at it hard instead of fooling about learning to dance or listening to opera on scratchy expensive records.
   • This new collection manages to refresh some scratchy old records, but also to bring home the inherent power of the blues to entertain.
   • When he started preproduction for the project, he scoured music shops around New York, buying every scratchy old record he could find.
   • They gave him a scratchy 78 rpm vinyl recording of a train and dynamite explosions in a stone quarry.
   • I tried to get a number for Gallo through a record company that released some scratchy, self-indulgent folk albums of his.
   • Until reintroduced by the CJB, we had to scrounge in Salvation Army Stores and junk shops searching for scratchy old copies of original recordings.
3. 1.3 (of writing or a drawing) done with quick and jagged strokes.
   a scratchy ink sketch of a man on horseback

   Example sentencesExamples

   • His linework was scratchy, his modelling often stiff, and his eye for perspective shaky.
   • Her vague, scratchy, grayish images look kind of like piles of bent wire already, and they might be more interesting in three dimensions.
   • Below the word, which ran across the chest, was a fashionably scratchy picture of what he presumed was meant to be a tennis racquet.
   • The collection of new work seems to follow that same artistic idea, with lots of small models and scratchy sketches all contributing towards one central theme.
   • His magnificent scratchy drawing skills are in global demand.
   • The poem is still at the Jackson Pollock stage - a mess of scratchy lines and blobs of ink on a yellow ground.
   • It was the bringer of the gray shade, the darker part of him coming to life in a shady drawing of scratchy stick figures.
   • He was wearing black faded jeans, and a red t-shirt with ‘Sporks Rule Me’ etched in black scratchy writing across it.
   • McKean's scratchy, angular drawings, reminiscent of Victorian etchings, add an ominous edge that helps ensure this book will be a real bedtime-buster.
   • While Galambos' black and white pen drawings at times seem a little scratchy and lacking in polish, he has a nice sense of design.
   • Her style has tended toward the expressionistic - fitful and scratchy.
   • He works in a scratchy, unpolished drawing style that looks like something put down in haste right after the event.
   • When the works were viewed side by side, de Kooning's brushwork really did look like a blowup of Soutine's scratchy strokes.
   • His scratchy pen portraits might focus on children but this volume is strictly adults only.
   • Hope's rather scratchy sketch shows the western end of the gallery with two Greek Doric columns framing a view of the organ.
   • Begin with a few scratchy sketches and then move to the canvas.
   • The chasm is not a peaceful picturesque place, but a reminder of nature's power, which is emphasized by the scratchy crosshatching of the drawing.
   • The artist likes to float between scratchy, airy paintings and thicker, impasto works, such as in some of the paintings of cows.
   • Pope has a scratchy, dark drawing style that tosses characters and objects together in an impressionistic jumble.
   • Did he ever pay a similar tribute to Smith's scratchy writings, or study his famous map?

   Synonyms

   jagged, hooked, spiky, spiked, spined, spiny, prickly, thorny, bristly, bristled, briary, brambly, sharp, pointed
4. 1.4 Bad-tempered or irritable.
   she was a little abrupt and scratchy

   Example sentencesExamples

   • A driver in a good mood is statistically less likely to be involved in an accident than one who's feeling scratchy and irritable.

   Synonyms

   irritable, irascible, fractious, fretful, cross, petulant, pettish, crabbed, crabby, crotchety, cantankerous, curmudgeonly, disagreeable, miserable, morose, peppery, on edge, edgy, impatient, complaining, querulous