DCHP-2

scrob scraub, scrawb, scrab [< Irish Gaelic scrábaim] DCHP-2 (May 2016)

• v. — Newfoundland

  to scratch; to tear flesh with nails or claws.

  Type: 2. Preservation — The Newfoundland English verb scrob is a preservation from the Irish Gaelic "scrábaim" or "scrabhaim", meaning 'to scrape, scrawl or tear' (Dinneen 1927: 985). Many such Irish words made their way into NLE when migrant fishery workers from southeast Ireland began permanently settling in the province in the 17th and 18th centuries (Clarke 2010b: 7). Kirwin (1993: 76) notes that some of these words can be spotted in older Newfoundland sources; however, the number in common spoken use today is diminishing. Scrob is one of the few terms that is still in use, even by the younger generations (Kirwin 1993: 77). While the majority of written sources show the term as a verb, scrob may occasionally be used as a noun. Internet search results show that the term is most frequent, by a considerable margin, in Canada (see Chart 1).
  See DNE, s.v. "scrob", COD-2, s.v. "scrob", which is marked "Cdn (Nfld) & Irish".