scratch

not be up to scratch

to not be of an acceptable standard or quality. I'm afraid your last essay wasn't up to scratch.

bring someone/something up to scratch (British & Australian)

not be up to scratch - to not be of an acceptable standard or quality. If you practise hard on this piece you should be able to bring it up to scratch by next week.

See also: bring

not come up to scratch (British & Australian)

not be up to scratch - to not be of an acceptable standard or quality. Under the new system, we will not continue to employ teachers whose work doesn't come up to scratch.

See also: come

from scratch

if you do something from scratch, you start right at the beginning. We lost all our work in the fire and had to start from scratch. George built a garage from scratch.

See also: from

scratch the surface

if you scratch the surface of a subject or a problem, you only discover or deal with a very small part of it. Up to now newspaper articles have only scratched the surface of this tremendously complex issue. (usually + of)

You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

something that you say to tell someone that you will help them if they will help you. I do have some information you might be interested in, but what can you offer me in return? You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

See also: back, I'll

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from scratch

from nothing. We decided to build a newspaper pretty much from scratch.

Usage notes: often used in the form start from scratch: Can we fix the current computer system, or would it be better to start from scratch?

See also: from

scratch your head

to have difficulty understanding something. A lot of people must be scratching their heads and trying to figure out what happened.

See also: head

scratch the surface

to deal with only a small part of a subject or a problem. All the payments we've made so far have hardly scratched the surface of the total we borrowed.

up to scratch

at an acceptable standard or quality. We're giving him a week to bring the team up to scratch.

Usage notes: often used in the form not up to scratch: I'm afraid your last essay wasn't up to scratch.

on a par with someone/something