SCUTTLE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Scuttle

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/skˈətəl/ Listen

verb

Scuttle v. t. (past & past part. scuttled; pres. part. scuttling)

To cut a hole or holes through the bottom, deck, or sides of (as of a ship), for any purpose.

To sink by making holes through the bottom of; as, to scuttle a ship.

Hence: To defeat, frustrate, abandon, or cause to be abandoned; of plans, projects, actions, hopes; as, the review committee scuttled the project due to lack of funds.

Scuttle v. i. To run with affected precipitation; to hurry; to bustle; to scuddle. "With the first dawn of day, old Janet was scuttling about the house to wake the baron."

noun

Scuttle n.

A broad, shallow basket.

A wide-mouthed vessel for holding coal: a coal hod.

Scuttle n. A quick pace; a short run.

Scuttle n.

A small opening in an outside wall or covering, furnished with a lid. Specifically:

(a)

(Naut.) A small opening or hatchway in the deck of a ship, large enough to admit a man, and with a lid for covering it, also, a like hole in the side or bottom of a ship.

(b)

An opening in the roof of a house, with a lid.

The lid or door which covers or closes an opening in a roof, wall, or the like.

Scuttle butt, or Scuttle cask (Naut.), a butt or cask with a large hole in it, used to contain the fresh water for daily use in a ship.

See images of 'Scuttle'

Etymology of 'Scuttle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Scuttle" Quotes from Famous Books

... he said, and in carpet slippers and unbuttoned waistcoat moved over to the base-burner, his feet, to avoid sloughing, not leaving the floor. He was slightly stooped, the sateen back to his waistcoat hiking to the curve of him. But he swung up the scuttle with a swoop, rattling coal freely down ...

— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... I said it made the girl from the department store scuttle down the corridor. I glared at her back, went into Pheola's ...

— The Right Time • Walter Bupp

... ejaculated I, "you amaze me, Billy. But—I am puzzled. I am in my own bunk, in my own cabin; there is a nice breeze blowing, for I can feel it coming through the open scuttle, and I hear the seething of water along the ship's side, yet I'll swear she is not moving an ...

— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... Donahue, an', like th' wild wan she is, she dhrew him on. Did ye iver see th' wan that wudden't? Faith, they're all alike. If it ain't a sthraight stick, it's a crooked wan; an' th' man was niver yet born, if he had a hump on his back as big as coal-scuttle an' had a face like th' back iv a hack, that cudden't get th' wink iv th' eye fr'm some woman. They're all alike, all alike. Not that I've annything again thim: 'tis thim that divides our sorrows an' doubles our joys, an' sews chiny buttons on our pa-ants an' mends our ...

— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne

... numerous the undertaking is both difficult and dangerous. It is most natural to try stunts of the sort under cover of darkness. At this camp, however, the paraffin arc lamps were particularly brilliant, and when star-gazing on several occasions I have seen rats and mice scuttle across the white sand some distance away. Though storms often raged during the day, the wind almost invariably blew itself out towards night, leaving a dead calm, broken only by the tramp of sentries or the distant rattling hum of a nightjar. It is a brave ...

— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

More quotes...