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Scat
Definitions
- 1 An imperative demand to leave, often understood by speaker and listener as impertinent. colloquial
"Scat! Go on! Get out of here!"
- 1 A tax; tribute.
- 2 Animal excrement; droppings, dung. countable, uncountable
"They turned to polar bear feces, or scat, as it is commonly called. […] She and Quinoa [a dog] worked with Dr. Rockwell to collect and study samples of polar bear scat for several years and found that the bears were eating lots of geese."
- 3 A blow; a hit, an impact. uncommon
"... a shot rang out, followed immediately by the "scat" of a bullet against the rock behind which he lay concealed. A tramp of heavy Galloway brogans was heard, and a half-hearted kicking about among the heather bushes, and at last[…]"
- 4 Scat singing.
- 5 Any fish in the family Scatophagidae.
Show 6 more definitions
- 6 singing jazz; the singer substitutes nonsense syllables for the words of the song and tries to sound like a musical instrument wordnet
- 7 A land-tax paid in the Shetland Islands. Shetland
- 8 Heroin. countable, slang, uncountable
- 9 A brisk shower of rain, driven by the wind. UK, dialectal
"Low black Clouds on it being ſoppoſed to prognoſticate Rain in the Places beneath it, it has been a ſtanding old Saw, When Haldon hath a Hat, Kenton beware a Skat."
- 10 Whiskey. countable, obsolete, slang, uncountable
- 11 Coprophilia, scatophilia. countable, slang, uncountable
"Enema queens, like scat queens, are really the scum of the earth."
- 1 To sing an improvised melodic solo using nonsense syllables, often onomatopoeic or imitative of musical instruments.
- 2 To leave quickly. colloquial
"Here comes the principal; we'd better scat."
- 3 flee; take to one's heels; cut and run wordnet
Etymology
From Middle English scet, schat, from Old English sċeatt (“property, goods”) and Old Norse skattr (“wealth, treaure”); both from Proto-Germanic *skattaz (“cattle, kine, wealth”), from Proto-Indo-European *skatn-, *skat- (“to jump, skip, splash out”). Cognate with Scots scat (“tax, levy, charge, payment, bribe”), West Frisian skat (“treasure, darling”), Dutch schat (“treasure, hoard, darling, sweetheart”), German Schatz (“treasure, hoard, wealth, store, darling, sweetheart”), Swedish skatt (“treasure, tax, duty”), Icelandic skattur (“tax, tribute”), Latin scateō (“gush, team, bubble forth, abound”).
Origin uncertain. Both the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster suggest derivation from Ancient Greek σκῶρ (skôr, “excrement”), compare English scato-, but Random House Dictionary suggests that the popular character of the word makes this unlikely. Perhaps from English dialectal scat (“to scatter, fling, bespatter”), or an alteration of shit, which is also used for "drugs, heroin".
Uncertain. The OED, which connects the senses "blow" and "shower" only tentatively, suggests that at least the former might be onomatopoeia. Dialectally, the word can also refer to "a spell" of any kind of weather, e.g. "a scat of fine weather", "a scat of frost".
1920s, probably imitative.
1920s, probably imitative.
Mid 19th century: * perhaps an abbreviation of scatter. * perhaps representing a hiss followed by the word cat. Compare Swedish schas (“shoo, begone”). * Alternatively, from the expression quicker than scat (“in a great hurry”), * Possibly from scoot, from the root of shoot.
Mid 19th century: * perhaps an abbreviation of scatter. * perhaps representing a hiss followed by the word cat. Compare Swedish schas (“shoo, begone”). * Alternatively, from the expression quicker than scat (“in a great hurry”), * Possibly from scoot, from the root of shoot.
From the taxonomic name of the family.
See also for "scat"
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Unscramble this word: scat