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Glite Dictionary
to scrape through

to scrape through

2 5.8
To barely succeed in a test or task
  • phrasal verb
  • /skreɪp θru/
  • UK
: aprobar por los pelos
  • Many students are grateful to have scraped through their assessments despite the difficult circumstances.
  • barely scraped through
  • just scraped through
  • managed to scrape through

Was working a bunch of different jobs, trying to finish college, kind of scrape through.

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Examples

  • Despite all the challenges, she managed to scrape through the exam with the minimum passing grade.

  • Passing is 50%, so I actually did a little better than just scrape through.

    Blog text (33)

  • So I scraped into medical school, scraped through the first few years of medical school.

  • Picking up enough points on that last ride to scrape through to tomorrow's competition round.

    Drift (2013)

  • No matter what was going on out at Elk Park Prep, I had to earn enough money for our household to scrape through the first six months of the new year.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Or they could flail around in a science major that isn't working for them, before either dropping out or scraping through with a miserable GPA.

    Blog text (9)

  • We had a few homeless, and even those in dire straits could rely on friends, family, and sometimes a shaky public system to barely scrape through.

    Blog text (15)

  • He only just scraped through mid-terms, At this rate, he'll be taking the supplementary exam alone on Chrismas, won't he...

    Burnt Flowers (2024)

  • After months of hard work, he was relieved to scrape through the final project just in time.

Synonyms

to squeak by
vsto scrape through
  • Informal
7 7.2

Manage to succeed or continue with only a small amount

is used when success meets only the minimum or a passing standard

Antonyms

to fail
∞ 1.0

Not succeed in doing something you wanted to do

How Successfully

to excel
81 3.7
to do well
∞ 1.2
pass
12 1.4
to scrape through
  • UK
2 5.8
to fail
725 1.0

Surface Forms

scrape through infinitive
scraped through past
scraped through past participle
scraping through present participle
scrapes through third person singular

Morphology

scrape + through

The sense of 'scrape through' can be partially inferred: 'scrape' (to obtain or manage with difficulty) combined with 'through' (to get to the other side/complete something) yields the idea of just managing to complete or pass. However the precise meaning 'barely succeed/pass' is a metaphorical extension of these parts and not strictly predictable for a B1 learner without exposure, so it is only partially transparent.

Etymology

The phrasal verb scrape through comes from the image of something rubbing or scraping as it just gets through a narrow gap, leaving marks because it fits only barely. So, it means 'to succeed but only just', like passing a test or getting by by a very small amount.