the.com/scruff

means The loose, untidy state of a person, coat, or neck-nape — and, by extension, the act of grabbing someone by that loose bit at the back of the neck.

from Scruff emerged in English as a variant of 'scuff,' itself likely related to Scandinavian words for the nape or the back of the neck (compare Old Norse 'skoft,' meaning hair or head). The sense of 'shabby, unkempt condition' grew naturally out of the image of a cat or dog seized by the loose skin at its neck — a grip that controls without harming, and by analogy came to describe anything held together by the thinnest, most negligent margin.