Find your perfect word!

Definition scat

Etymology 1

From Middle English scet, schat, from Old English sceatt (“property, goods, owndom, wealth, treasure; payment, price, gift, bribe, tax, tribute, money, goods, reward, rent, a tithe; a piece of money, a coin; denarius, twentieth part of a shilling”) and Old Norse skattr (“wealth, treaure, tax, tribute, coin”); both from Proto-Germanic *skattaz (“cattle, kine, wealth, owndom, goods, hoard, treasure, geld, money”), 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 scate? (“gush, team, bubble forth, abound”).

Noun

scat (plural scats)

1. A tax; tribute.
2. (Britain dialectal) A land-tax paid in the Shetland Islands.

Etymology 2

Origin uncertain. Both the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster suggest derivation from Ancient Greek ???? (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".

Noun

scat (uncountable)

1. (biology) Animal excrement; droppings, dung.
2. (slang) Heroin.
3. (slang, obsolete) Whiskey.
4. (slang) Coprophilia.
5. (Britain, dialectal) A brisk shower of rain, driven by the wind.

Etymology 3

Probably imitative.

Noun

scat (plural scats)

1. (music, jazz) Scat singing.

Verb

scat (third-person singular simple present scats, present participle scatting, simple past and past participle scatted)

1. (music, jazz) To sing an improvised melodic solo using nonsense syllables, often onomatopoeic or imitative of musical instruments.

Etymology 4

Perhaps from the interjection scat!, itself an interjectional form of scoot! or scout!, from the root of shoot. Alternatively, from the expression quicker than s'cat (“in a great hurry”), perhaps representing a hiss followed by the word cat. Compare Swedish schas! (“shoo!, begone!”). (Can this etymology be sourced?)

Verb

scat (third-person singular simple present scats, present participle scatting, simple past and past participle scatted)

1. (colloquial) To leave quickly (often used in the imperative).
2. (colloquial) An imperative demand, often understood by speaker and listener as impertinent.

Etymology 5

From the taxonomic name of the family

Noun

scat (plural scats)

1. Any fish in the family Scatophagidae

Results 452 Words with the letters SCAT

You can also try words with the phrase SCAT, words starting with the letters SCAT, or words ending in the letters SCAT.

Favorites Searches

Words… ending with q, starting with q, starting with qa, starting with qo, with two letters, starting with x, starting with j, ending with j,

Some random searches: Words with the letters JFPU, Words with the letters HDO, Words with the letters GGRHSO, Words with the letters EQV,