griffonage

/ˈɡrɪfəˌnɑːʒ/

Etymology

From French griffonner.

griffonage means careless handwriting; a crude or illegible scrawl. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

griffonage is pronounced /ˈɡrɪfəˌnɑːʒ/.

Why “griffonage” is a great word

GRIFFONAGE — [Noun] A crude, careless, or illegible scrawl; the product of hasty and indifferent penmanship. From French *griffonner* (“to scribble or scrawl”), from *griffon* (“stylus, griffin”), the mythical beast's claw suggesting the untidy marks of a hurried hand. Unlike “calligraphy,” which denotes beauty born of meticulous control, or the generic “scribble,” griffonage is a formal, humorous indictment of negligent haste. It is the physician's prescription transformed into a cryptic rune, the love note dashed off on a trembling knee, and the indecipherable signature that turns a vital record into an artifact for future speculation—a private glyph system whose meaning perishes with the moment of its creation.

noun

Careless handwriting; a crude or illegible scrawl.“"We hastened to pack up our ‘trumpery’..and among the rest, my six hundred pages of griffonage."”