Scramblings

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A disordered or confused arrangement of items or thoughts; the act of hurriedly collecting or mixing things together; a form of cooking involving the quick mixing of eggs or other ingredients in a pan while heat is applied
2. A chaotic or frantic attempt to gather or organize objects or ideas in a hasty manner; the process of rapidly blending or stirring food substances to create a dish; an unstructured or random configuration of elements or concepts
3. A hurried and jumbled collection of various components or ideas; the quick stirring or combination of ingredients in culinary practice; a state of disarray or tumult in aspects of life or thought

Etymology: "Scramblings" is the plural of "scrambling," the gerund of "scramble." The verb "scramble" first appeared in English in the 1820s, and its origin is uncertain; it may be a blend or variant of "scamble" (to scrape together, to struggle for something) combined with "scrabble" and "ramble," or it may be of dialect origin. The early sense was of moving awkwardly on hands and feet, which is why a scramble still describes a steep climb over rocks. The cooking sense came along in the mid-1800s, when cooks began scrambling eggs by stirring them together in a pan over heat, breaking up the set curds as they formed. The sense of mixed or jumbled things followed the same pattern of rapid, disorderly motion. Because "scramblings" is a plural noun, it collects these separate instances of scrambling into a single set of disordered things.

Synonyms: clamberings, scamperings, climbings, rushes, scurries

Antonyms: stillnesses, rests, stays, pauses, stagnations