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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
translation icon : 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
4 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
898 1.0

Not succeed in doing something you wanted to do

How Successfully

to excel
58 3.7
to do well
520 1.2
pass
11 1.4
to scrape through
  • UK
2 5.8
to fail
∞ 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.