chicken scratch vs cursive

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. 

cursive

noun
  • Joined-up handwriting. 

  • A manuscript written in cursive characters. 

  • A cursive character, letter or font. 

adj
  • Having successive letters joined together. 

  • Running; flowing. 

  • Of or relating to a grammatical aspect relating to an action that occurs in a straight line (in space or time). 

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