Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who scribbles, especially an author regarded as very minor, untalented, or disreputable.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who scribbles or writes carelessly, loosely, or badly; hence, a petty author; a writer of no reputation.
  • noun A machine used for scribbling cotton or woolen fiber.
  • noun A person who tends such a machine and is said to scribble the fiber.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who scribbles; a petty author; a writer of no reputation; a literary hack.
  • noun A scribbling machine.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One who scribbles; a hasty or untalented writer or artist.
  • noun dated A machine for coarse carding or teasing of wool.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a writer whose handwriting is careless and hard to read
  • noun informal terms for journalists

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

scribble +‎ -er

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Examples

  • David Aaronovitch criticises the "melange of questionable statistics, assertions dressed as facts and straightforward scapegoating cranked out by Migration Watch UK and its main scribbler, Anthony Browne", and attacks the 'lies, damned lies' of the anti-immigration lobby.

    The Writing On The Wall Laban 2004

  • David Aaronovitch criticises the "melange of questionable statistics, assertions dressed as facts and straightforward scapegoating cranked out by Migration Watch UK and its main scribbler, Anthony Browne", and attacks the 'lies, damned lies' of the anti-immigration lobby.

    December 19, 2004 Laban 2004

  • David Aaronovitch criticises the "melange of questionable statistics, assertions dressed as facts and straightforward scapegoating cranked out by Migration Watch UK and its main scribbler, Anthony Browne", and attacks the 'lies, damned lies' of the anti-immigration lobby.

    Archive 2004-12-19 Laban 2004

  • (The scribbler was a reporter for the Detroit News, which ran a front-page story about that Helms-Ellis-Bauman confab in the next day's late editions.)

    Dream Ticket Memories 2008

  • A scrivener is a public copyist, but that noun has fallen into disuse except among notaries public; a scribe, once “a copyist of biblical texts,” is now used jocularly to mean “journalist,” and a scribbler is a put-down of a writer.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • A scrivener is a public copyist, but that noun has fallen into disuse except among notaries public; a scribe, once “a copyist of biblical texts,” is now used jocularly to mean “journalist,” and a scribbler is a put-down of a writer.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • A scrivener is a public copyist, but that noun has fallen into disuse except among notaries public; a scribe, once “a copyist of biblical texts,” is now used jocularly to mean “journalist,” and a scribbler is a put-down of a writer.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • A scrivener is a public copyist, but that noun has fallen into disuse except among notaries public; a scribe, once “a copyist of biblical texts,” is now used jocularly to mean “journalist,” and a scribbler is a put-down of a writer.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • "For whom did it concern to know that one or another scribbler was a dunce?"

    Dr. Johnson and His Circle John Cann Bailey 1897

  • The subject itself had nothing generally interesting, for whom did it concern to know that one or another scribbler was a dunce?

    Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope Johnson, Samuel 1891

Comments

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  • In Hollywood, it's slang for a TV writer.

    August 26, 2009