scuttle1
/ˈskʌt(ə)l
/- Half a scuttle of coal 2-3 times/day is required to keep the fire burning.
- No scuttle shake or rattles were detected, a good sign that the aluminium chassis is all that its cracked up to be.
- The S2000 has no scuttle shake, that bane of soft tops, because it uses what Honda calls an X-bone frame.
Origin
Late Old English scutel 'dish, platter', from Old Norse skutill, from Latin scutella 'dish'.
There are three main scuttles in English. The one you keep coal in meant a dish in Old English and comes via Old Norse from Latin scutella ‘dish’. The one for moving is probably from dialect scuddle from scud (mid 16th century) ‘move quickly’, which may have come from scut (Late Middle English) originally meaning a hare, but now better known as the tail of a hare or rabbit. This would give scud an original meaning similar to the modern informal ‘to hare along’ for to move quickly. The scuttle of a ship is first found as a noun meaning ‘hatchway’ at the end of the 15th century, and only as a verb ‘to sink’ from the mid 17th. It may come, via French, from Spanish escotilla ‘hatchway’.
Rhymes
scuttle2
/ˈskʌt(ə)l/- In other contemporaneous drawings, the fish bodies seem to have morphed into billowing sails and scuttling deep-sea crustaceans.
- Meanwhile, rows of new swiveling, scuttling ergonomic chairs line the walls.
- Sartre also, Marie-Denise Boros points out, was particularly fond of the crab, a creature which scuttles its way into everything from his philosophical texts to his plays.
Synonyms
- Earlier in the day, I visited Little Water Cay, where I could hear the scuttle of endangered rock iguanas mixing with the waves.
Synonyms
Origin
Late 15th century: compare with dialect scuddle, frequentative of scud1.
scuttle3
/ˈskʌt(ə)l/- The gallant heroism of both the British Navy and the German Captain Langsdorff, who scuttles his own ship rather than face defeat, strongly appealed to Powell and Pressburger.
- A Soviet sub carrying rotten caviar and toxic waste cabbage broth is scuttled and the oozing brew burbles into the depths of the ocean.
- He was an outspoken critic of the show when it began, mostly because it scuttled his own plans for a Galactica reboot that would pick up where the 1978 version left off.
- As such, she doesn't get out much, since her few attempts at dating are scuttled by the conspicuous presence of her bodyguards.
- Kunuk comes off as a sentimentalist, scuttling his attempts to inflate his story into something bigger, leaving remains that feel as psychologically uncomplicated as the similarly themed The Lion King.
Origin
Late 15th century (as a noun): perhaps from Old French escoutille, from the Spanish diminutive escotilla 'hatchway'. The verb dates from the mid 17th century.