scrambling

noun, adj — 5 senses

scrambling

noun

Etymology (linguistics): Coined by American linguist John R. Ross in 1967.

1

The act by which something is scrambled.

  • The scrambling of the message made it harder to decode.
2

Climbing, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports Ascending steep terrain using one's hands to assist in holds and balance.

3

Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences The ability of a language to reorder arguments within a clause without changing the core meaning or violating grammaticality.

  • As all the Germanic languages are V2 languages (except English, which also has neither object shift nor scrambling), and as the examples are main clauses without auxiliary verbs, the main verb has moved to C.1994, Sten Vikner, “Scandinavian object shift and West Germanic scrambling”, in Norbert Corver, Henk van Riemsdijk, editors, Studies on Scrambling […] , Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 488:

scrambling

adj

Etymology (linguistics): Coined by American linguist John R. Ross in 1967.

1

Confused and irregular; awkward; scambling.

  • A huge old scrambling bedroom.1826, [Walter Scott], Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, →OCLC:
2

Biology, Botany, Natural sciences Having a stem too weak to support itself, instead attaching to and relying on the stems or trunks of stronger plants.

  • All three types of climbing organs here demonstrated for Late Palaeozoic seed ferns are also found in modern angiosperms. This leads to the conclusion that several taxa of Late Palaeozoic seed ferns were well-adapted to climbing and scrambling growth habits.1998, Kerp with Hans and Michael Krings, “Climbing and scrambling growth habits: common life strategies among Late Carboniferous seed ferns”, in Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences (IIA-Earth and Planetary Science 326.8), pages 583-588:
Derived terms
scrambling dragon

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.