Scut

//skʌt// noun, verb, slang

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A hare; (hunting, also figuratively) a hare as the game in a hunt. obsolete
  2. 2
    A contemptible person. Ireland, colloquial

    ""I'll have no more of it. I'll have no more Dinny Ryans handlin' flesh and blood of my gettin'. Ye'd see me dyin' for a sup of drink to give me peace, and you philanderin' and danderin' with yon scut of a fellow, and worse doin's behind that, if the truth is told.""

  3. 3
    Distasteful work; drudgery attributive, countable, uncountable

    "Let's devote mornings to the scut, do real work in the afternoon."

  4. 4
    a short erect tail wordnet
  5. 5
    A short, erect tail, as of a hare, rabbit, or deer.

    "Shakespeare's use of the word scut may be a sly reference to Mistress Ford's pudenda: see sense 3."

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    Some menial procedure left for a doctor or medical student to complete, sometimes for training purposes. countable, slang, uncountable

    "There's no question that it's sexist. [Female residents] are berated more on rounds, given more scut to do."

  2. 7
    The buttocks or rump; also, the female pudenda, the vulva. broadly

    "I rumpled her Feathers, and tickled her Scut, / And play'd the round Rubbers at two handed Put."

Verb
  1. 1
    To scamper off. East-Anglia, Yorkshire, intransitive

    "―A fat lot you know about it, Thunder! Wells said. I know why they scut."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English scut (“hare”); further etymology uncertain, possibly related to Middle English scut, scute (“short”), possibly from Old French escorter, escurter, or Latin excurtāre, scurtāre, from curtō (“to cut short, shorten”), from curtus (“short; shortened”) (from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”)) + -ō. A derivation from Old Norse skut, skutr (“stern of a boat”), or Icelandic skott (“animal's tail”) is thought to be unlikely. As to sense 3 (“the female pudenda, the vulva”), see the letter of 5 June 1875 from Joseph Crosby to Joseph Parker Norris published in One Touch of Shakespeare (1986).

Etymology 2

Uncertain, possibly a variant of scout (“(obsolete except Scotland) contemptible person”), possibly related to scout (“to reject with contempt; to scoff”), from a North Germanic language; compare Old Norse skúta, skúte (“a taunt”), probably from Proto-Germanic *skeutaną (“to shoot”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewd- (“to shoot; to throw”). Compare Old Norse skútyrði, skotyrði (“abusive language”).

Etymology 3

Uncertain; perhaps related to scut (“contemptible person”): see etymology 2.

Etymology 4

Origin unknown; perhaps from scut(tle), or related to Swedish scutla (“to leap”).

Next best steps

Mini challenge

Unscramble this word: scut