scramble
v.v. to move quickly using your hands and feet, or to hurry to do something before others. You use this when you are in a rush or when a situation is disorganized.
v. to move or climb hurriedly, especially on all fours; to struggle or compete frantically with others for a limited resource. Often implies a lack of order or a sudden necessity for speed.
The children scramble up the hill to see the view.
Shoppers often scramble to find the best deals during the first hour of the holiday sale.
As the deadline approached, the legal team had to scramble to assemble the necessary documentation before the court session began.
Origin uncertain. Perhaps from earlier dialectal scramble, scrammel (“to collect or rake together with the hands”), from scramb (“to pull or scrape together with the hands”) + -le (frequentative suffix) (compare Dutch schrammen (“to graze, brush, scratch”)); or alternatively from a nasalised form of scrabble (“to scrape or scratch quickly”).
The verb is intransitive and frequently takes the preposition 'for' or 'to'.