Scut

From Old Norse skutr ("stern").

Full definition of scut

Noun

1. A short, erect tail, as of a hare or rabbit
2. rump, pudenda, vulva
• a. 1602, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, V, 4, 19Mrs. Ford. Sir John ! art thou there, my deer ? my male deer ?Falstaff. My doe with the black scut!
• a. 1968, Keith Roberts, "The Lady Margaret", in Modern Classics of Science Fiction, ed. Gardner R. Dozois, 1993, page 233"So ... so she show you her pretty li'l scut, he? ...."
• 1997, Charles Frazier, Cold MountainOne of the sisters backed up to the fire and hiked up the tail of her dress and bent over and thrust out her scut to it and stared at Inman with a look of glazed pleasure in her blue eyes.
3. A slut; whore; hussy
• 1954, Paul Vincent Carroll, The Wise Have Not Spoken, page 49Me scut of a daughter puttin' it on her back in finery. ...
• a. 1989, Pat Cadigan, "Pretty Boy Crossover", in Modern Classics of Science Fiction, ed. Gardner R. Dozois, 1993, page 565"You scut," she said as we hit the entrance ramp of the interstate. "You're a scut-pumping Conservative.

Verb

1. To scamper off
• 1916, James Joyce, , (Macmillan Press Ltd, paperback, 47)"I know why they scut."

Probably an alteration of scout (obsolete sense), itself from Middle English

Noun

1. A contemptible person.
• 1954, Paul Vincent Carroll, The Wise Have Not Spoken, page 49"... Me scut of a daughter puttin' it on her back in finery. ..."
• a. 1989, Pat Cadigan, "Pretty Boy Crossover", in Modern Classics of Science Fiction, ed. Gardner R. Dozois, 1993, page 565"You scut," she said as we hit the entrance ramp of the interstate. "You're a scut-pumping Conservative."
• 1993, Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa, page 14Chris. Danny Bradley is a scut, Rose.Rose. I never said it was Danny Bradley!Chris. He's a married man with three young children.
• 2005, Dean Whitlock, Sky Carver, page 108"Fat-headed scut. That's what he is, scut. Thinks he runs the whole river."

From Middle English shoute, scoute, skoute, shute, schuit (=modern Dutch), scut - "flat-bottomed boat, barge; the master of a shoute; also, a sailor on a shoute."

Noun

1. Distasteful work; drudgery.
• 1999, Patricia L. Dawson Forged by the Knife: The Experience of Surgical Residency from the Perspective of a Woman of Color, page 100"... residents are berated more on rounds, given more scut to do. ..."
• 1999, Jonathan Kellerman, Billy Straight, page 112"Let's devote mornings to the scut, do real work in the afternoon. ...."
• 2001, Catherine Miles Wallace, Motherhood in the Balance: Children, Career, Me, and God, page 163And the scut of weeding or washing clothes or waiting in the dentist's waiting room or the soccer field parking lot is actually far less brutalizing than the scut of grading freshman essays ....
• 2003, Virginia G. Salazar, Gone: A Sci Fi about Cloning, page 144"What if you were called a scut puppy?' "When I first started I was one. A scut puppy is usually a medical student or a nurse who does menial tasks.
• a. 2004, Clark Howard, "The Leper Colony", in The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories: Fifth Annual Collection, ed. Martin H. Greenberg, 2004 page 445".... So they give the people assigned to the Probation Squad every scut case that other squads don't want to handle."
2. (slang, medicine) Some menial, common unfinished task left for medical students, or some clinically useful training.

Derived terms

• scut monkey
• scut work
• scutwork

Anagrams

• cust
• cuts