scroll

Etymology

From Middle English scrowle, scrolle, from earlier scrowe, scrouwe (influenced by Middle English rolle), from Old French escroe, escrowe, escrouwe (“scroll, strip of parchment”), from Frankish *skrōda (“a shred”), from Proto-Germanic *skraudō, from *skrew- (“to cut; cutting tool”), extension of *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Doublet of shred and escrow.

noun

1. A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll.
2. (architecture) An ornament formed of undulations giving off spirals or sprays, usually suggestive of plant form. Roman architectural ornament is largely of some scroll pattern.
3. Spirals or sprays in the shape of an actual plant.
   I lose myself in a flawed henna plant jutting toward the scroll. Its rose-pink eyes burst off the stems. 1985, Peter Balakian, “The Oriental Rug”, in Robert Pack, Jay Parini, editors, Introspections: American poets on one of their own poems, Hanover and London: University Press of New England for Middlebury College Press, published 1997, page 31
4. A mark or flourish added to a person's signature, intended to represent a seal, and in some States allowed as a substitute for a seal. [U.S.] Alexander Mansfield Burrill.
5. (lutherie) The carved end of a violin, viola, cello or other stringed instrument, most commonly scroll-shaped but occasionally in the form of a human or animal head.
6. (geometry) A skew surface.
7. (cooking) A kind of sweet roll baked in a somewhat spiral shape.
   I ordered a glass of lemonade and a coffee scroll.
8. (computer graphics) The incremental movement of graphics on a screen, removing one portion to show the next.
   […] the computer sends orders, via electrical impulses, to recompose the liquid crystal structure inside the cells quickly which results in the familiar smooth scroll of the pointer on your screen. 2005, Alberto de Lózar Muñoz, Liquid Crystal Dynamics: Defects, Walls and Gels, page 1
9. (hydraulics) A spiral waterway placed round a turbine to regulate the flow.
10. (anatomy) A turbinate bone.

verb

1. (computing, transitive) To change one's view of data on a computer's display by moving in gradual increments, typically using a scroll bar or a scroll wheel.
   She scrolled the offending image out of view.
2. (intransitive) To move in or out of view horizontally or vertically.
   The rising credits slowly scrolled off the screen.
   Pavement scrolled beneath the headlight beams, reminding Emma of a conveyor belt. 2018, Darrin Doyle, Scoundrels Among Us: Stories
3. (Internet, intransitive) To flood a chat system with numerous lines of text, causing legitimate messages to scroll out of view before they can be read.
   Hey, stop scrolling!
   It's cool but i know why I prefer newsgroups : I just got banned for scrolling or summat : i was typing one word in each message so pppl could read it cos it was going so fast - geez. 1998, rOOth, “Brain's chat”, in alt.music.queen (Usenet)