What does "scute" mean?

A horny, chitinous, or bony external plate or scale, as on the shell of a turtle or the skin of crocodiles.

What is a synonym for "scute"?

Common synonyms include: armor, carapace, cortex, mail, plate, scale.

//skjuːt// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A horny, chitinous, or bony external plate or scale, as on the shell of a turtle or the skin of crocodiles.
"Then one afternoon, as he's stripping the scutes and hide from a shortnose sturgeon, an idea hits him."
2
large bony or horny plate as on an armadillo or turtle or the underside of a snake wordnet
3
A proneural gene, often associated with achaete, that is required for the formation of many larval and adult sense organs
4
A small shield. obsolete
"But yet they ouer shote vs Wyth crownes and wyth scutus; With scutis and crownes of gold I drede we are bought and solde; […]"
5
An old French gold coin. historical

"Then one afternoon, as he's stripping the scutes and hide from a shortnose sturgeon, an idea hits him."

Borrowed from Latin scutum (“shield”). Compare scutum, escudo, scudo, and écu.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.