scroll
Americannoun
-
scrolls
plural
-
a roll of parchment, paper, copper, or other material, especially one with writing on it.
a scroll containing the entire Old Testament.
-
something, especially an ornament, resembling a partly unrolled sheet of paper or having a spiral or coiled form.
-
a list, roll, roster, or schedule.
-
(in Japanese and Chinese art) a painting or text on silk or paper that is either displayed on a wall hanging scroll or held by the viewer hand scroll and is rolled up when not in use.
-
the curved head of a violin or other bowed instrument.
-
a note, message, or other piece of writing.
verb (used with object)
-
scrolls,
present (3rd person singular)
-
scrolled,
past participle, past
-
scrolling
present participle
-
to cut into a curved form with a narrow-bladed saw.
-
Computers. to move (text) up, down, or across a display screen, with new text appearing on the screen as old text disappears.
verb (used without object)
-
scrolls,
present (3rd person singular)
-
scrolled,
past participle, past
-
scrolling
present participle
noun
-
a roll of parchment, paper, etc, usually inscribed with writing
-
an ancient book in the form of a roll of parchment, papyrus, etc
-
-
a decorative carving or moulding resembling a scroll
-
( as modifier )
a scroll saw
-
( in combination )
scrollwork
-
verb
-
(tr) to saw into scrolls
-
to roll up like a scroll
-
computing to move (text) from right to left or up and down on a screen in order to view text that cannot be contained within a single display image
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
scrollsimple
-
scrollssimple
-
have scrolledperfect
-
has scrolledperfect
-
am scrollingprogressive
-
are scrollingprogressive
-
is scrollingprogressive
-
have been scrollingperfect progressive
-
has been scrollingperfect progressive
Past
-
scrolledsimple
-
had scrolledperfect
-
was scrollingprogressive
-
were scrollingprogressive
-
had been scrollingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of scroll
1350–1400; Middle English scrowle; blend of scrow, aphetic variant of escrow and rowle roll
Explanation
A rolled up piece of paper is a scroll. If you write a poem on a sheet of paper, roll it up, and tie it with a ribbon, you can call it a scroll. Before books existed, people wrote stories or important information on parchment or papyrus and rolled them into scrolls for easy storage and transport. Sometimes, a scroll would serve as a work of art, a decorated tale that would occasionally be unrolled and displayed. These days, when you scroll through something, you're probably reading it on a computer, moving down the screen.
Vocabulary lists containing scroll
Ancient Egypt - Introductory
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"Invictus"
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Ancient Egypt - Middle School and High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Not only are the states seeking billions of dollars from Meta, they are demanding it make changes to Instagram and Facebook, including ending "like" counts and infinite scroll.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
The old crowded wait has become a couch scroll until your green bean skewer and brisket noodles appear by e-bike.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026
Just two percent of the 1,000 teenagers polled said they did not currently scroll on social media or watch short-form videos on school nights.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
I scroll through the portraits he’d emailed me: two women laughing, a family smiling, and my personal favorite, a pop-artish rendering of Gigi Hadid.
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2026
“Is this from your scroll? Why are you meeting people from your scroll, Anony Mouse?”
From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows
On our Zoom call, Herberhold scrolls through the TikTok feed she uses as a shell account to study the Com network.
From Slate ● May 12, 2026
She scrolls job advertisements online, fearful of internet scammers preying on her.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 11, 2026
On her phone, the lock screen still has a candid moment from their wedding, while in her gallery she scrolls back, further and further, to find Shubham again.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2026
A little later in our conversation, he pulls out his phone, scrolls for a second, then hits play.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 15, 2026
If he could decipher Archimedes’s scrolls, he could do amazing things.
From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan
Both were littered with sports events, which I scrolled past, but also had sections for elections, politics, tech and a lot more.
From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2026
Tadeh Ghazalian woke up on Thursday morning and scrolled Instagram, where he saw a video of a broken water main and a deluge of water spilling onto the street — right by his restaurant.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2026
Her voice broke as she scrolled through dozens of photos and videos on her phone.
From Barron's ● May 22, 2026
In the hours after he was re-elected, councillor Shazad Fazal scrolled through the messages he had been sent on Facebook.
From BBC ● May 15, 2026
The scrolled legs under the dining table were dust catchers, and so were the kinds of objects—doodads, my mother called them—other people kept on their mantelpieces.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
“Sometimes it’s kind of nice to enter a meditative state and not be scrolling on my phone,” he observes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
"I don't think he is one of them that will do some mindless scrolling," he said.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
Sharon Osbourne’s son, Jack, was scrolling online last November when he came across a website selling a Christmas elf with the face of his father, Ozzy Osbourne.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
In his ruling, New Mexico Judge Bryan Biedscheid also noted that teenagers are particularly susceptible to features that are designed to boost engagement such as autoplay, infinite scrolling, like counts, push notifications and algorithmic recommendations.
From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026
He swallowed me into a bear hug, then settled back in his chair, humming along with the CD still playing in the background, and picked up the laptop to resume his scrolling.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
