scat1
/skat
/verb (scats, scatting, scatted) [no object, usually in imperative] informal
Go away; leave: Scat! Leave me alone...
- There's no political favoritism here, so scat, you malicious muckrakers.
- Vyk exclaimed stopping Darryn from his own question and then telling his driver to scat.
Origin
Mid 19th century: perhaps an abbreviation of scatter, or perhaps from the sound of a hiss (used to drive an animal away) + -cat.
Rhymes
scat2
/skat/noun (also scat singing) [mass noun]
Improvised jazz singing in which the voice is used in imitation of an instrument: [as modifier]: a scat rendition scat samples...
- Armstrong's scat singing also influenced the singing technique of bebop innovator Dizzy Gillespie, who first began recording bebop in 1944 with saxophonist Charlie Parker.
- Mel Collins' squawking sax combines with Boz Burrell's scat singing on ‘Peoria’ to produce the closest they ever got to funk.
- In particular the album's opening few moments feature some fairly rank scat singing which had me jumping for the skip button.
verb (scats, scatting, scatted) [no object]
Sing using the voice in imitation of an instrument: she scats and harmonizes simultaneously (as noun scatting) some gentle scatting...
- The man in the video starts scatting, familiar and quaint at first but soon his voice starts evoking everything from Appalachian folk to an angel-dust fit.
- In doing so, he proves himself to be one of the more expressive singers around, free of melismatic acrobatics and, fortunately, scatting.
- Nightworks is their debut album, redolent with thick house beats, whooshey keyboards, horns, saxes, scatting…
Origin
1920s: probably imitative.
scat3
/skat/noun [mass noun]
Droppings, especially those of carnivorous mammals: fresh bear scat [count noun]: samples of scats from otters wolf scats...
- Over several weeks, I collected carnivore scat similar to that I had seen gathered by waxbills and stored it in a freezer.
- Using scat allows sample collection without disturbing the focal animal.
- Other animals are known to use scat for surprising purposes; larval tortoise beetles pile fecal shields on their backs to protect them from predators.
Origin
1950s: from Greek skōr, skat- 'dung'.
scat4
/skat/noun
A small deep-bodied silvery fish that lives in inshore and estuarine waters of the Indo-Pacific.
- Family Scatophagidae: several genera and species. See also argus (sense 3).
Origin
1960s: abbreviation of modern Latin Scatophagidae, from Greek skatophagos 'dung-eating' (because the fish is often found beside sewage outlets).