Scrow

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An old word for a scroll or a slip of parchment or paper bearing writing, especially a list or a brief document
2. A strip or scrap of parchment or paper, often rolled up, on which something is written
3. A written scroll or small piece of parchment used in earlier times to hold a record or message

Etymology: The word "scrow" is an obsolete English term for a scroll or roll of writing, and its history runs back to a Germanic word for a torn-off piece. Middle English "scrowe" came from Old French "escroe", which meant a register, a note, or a bit of parchment. That French word had been borrowed from Frankish "*skrōda", meaning "piece", and this in turn derived from a Proto-Germanic root meaning "to shred". The idea behind the word is simple: a scrap of material cut or torn from a larger sheet. A scrap of parchment was exactly the sort of thing a clerk would write a note or record on, so the sense of a piece of writing grew naturally out of the sense of a piece of material. The word is a fine example of how a plain physical notion, a torn-off bit, could come to name a document.