Write sloppily, erasing the initial stroke (5)
I believe the answer is:
crawl
'stroke' is the definition.
(crawl is a kind of stroke)
I cannot understand how the rest of the clue works.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for crawl that I've seen before include "fawn" , "Unusually slow rate of movement" , "Grovel" , "Suck up to" , "Way of swimming" .)