Scribble

The word scribble is of latin origin, from the word scribere, to write. The American Heritage Dictionary supposes that this later evolved into scriben, meaning the same thing, which eventually became scriblen in Middle English.

As a verb, the word means "To write hurriedly without heed to legibility or style" or "To write or draw in a hurried, careless way".

Scribble can also be used as a noun which refers to "careless hurried writing" or "meaningless marks and lines".

I like this word because it seems to demonstrate a pejorative shift, going from a neutral term, to write, to a more negative connotation of carelessness. Because we were just talking about this in class, I found it to be a good example of this phenomena.