chicken scratch vs copy

chicken scratch

noun
  • Cramped or illegible handwriting. 

  • Chicken feed consisting of random mixed grains such as corn, wheat, barley, sorghum and milling by-products. 

  • A type of cross-stitch embroidery done on gingham fabric. 

copy

noun
  • Writing paper of a particular size, called also bastard. 

  • The text of newspaper articles. 

  • The output of copywriters, who are employed to write material which encourages consumers to buy goods or services. 

  • The result of copying; an identical duplicate of an original. 

  • A school work pad. 

  • A printed edition of a book or magazine. 

  • The result of gene or chromosomal duplication. 

  • An imitation, sometimes of inferior quality. 

  • The text that is to be typeset. 

  • A gender-neutral abbreviation for copy boy. 

verb
  • To produce an object identical to a given object. 

  • To give or transmit a copy to (a person). 

  • To place a copy of an object in memory for later use. 

  • To imitate. 

  • To receive a transmission successfully. 

How often have the words chicken scratch and copy occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )