Join free

scat

English · Français · Deutsch · Italiano · Thesaurus

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

scat¹

  • /skæt/

Sounds like skat · Rhymes with -æt

Where it comes from

From Middle English scet, schat, from Old English sċeatt (“property, goods”) and Old Norse skattr (“wealth, treaure”); both from Proto-Germanic *skattaz (“cattle, kine, wealth”), 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 scateō (“gush, team, bubble forth, abound”).

noun scats · scatt · skatt

  1. A tax; tribute.
  2. Shetland A land-tax paid in the Shetland Islands.

scat²

  • /skæt/

Sounds like skat · Rhymes with -æt

Where it comes from

Origin uncertain. Both the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster suggest derivation from Ancient Greek σκῶρ (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 scats · skat · skatt

  1. countable, uncountable Animal excrement; droppings, dung. They turned to polar bear feces, or scat, as it is commonly called. […] She and Quinoa [a dog] worked with Dr. Rockwell to collect and study samples of polar bear scat for several years and found that the bears were eating lots of geese.

    Similar: feces

  2. countable, slang, uncountable Heroin.

    Similar: shit

  3. countable, obsolete, slang, uncountable Whiskey.
  4. countable, slang, uncountable Coprophilia, scatophilia. Enema queens, like scat queens, are really the scum of the earth.

    Similar: storm

Similar: scag

scat³

  • /skæt/

Sounds like skat · Rhymes with -æt

Where it comes from

Uncertain. The OED, which connects the senses "blow" and "shower" only tentatively, suggests that at least the former might be onomatopoeia. Dialectally, the word can also refer to "a spell" of any kind of weather, e.g. "a scat of fine weather", "a scat of frost".

noun scats

  1. uncommon A blow; a hit, an impact. ... a shot rang out, followed immediately by the "scat" of a bullet against the rock behind which he lay concealed. A tramp of heavy Galloway brogans was heard, and a half-hearted kicking about among the heather bushes, and at last[…]
  2. UK, dialectal A brisk shower of rain, driven by the wind. Low black Clouds on it being ſoppoſed to prognoſticate Rain in the Places beneath it, it has been a ſtanding old Saw, When Haldon hath a Hat, Kenton beware a Skat.

scat⁴

  • /skæt/

Sounds like skat · Rhymes with -æt

Where it comes from

1920s, probably imitative.

noun scats

  1. Scat singing.

verb scats · scatting · scatted

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

scat⁵

  • /skæt/

Sounds like skat · Rhymes with -æt

Where it comes from

Mid 19th century:

* perhaps an abbreviation of scatter.

* perhaps representing a hiss followed by the word cat. Compare Swedish schas (“shoo, begone”).

* Alternatively, from the expression quicker than scat (“in a great hurry”),

* Possibly from scoot, from the root of shoot.

verb scats · scatting · scatted

  1. colloquial To leave quickly. Here comes the principal; we'd better scat.

interjection

  1. colloquial An imperative demand to leave, often understood by speaker and listener as impertinent. Scat! Go on! Get out of here!

scat⁶

  • /skæt/

Sounds like skat · Rhymes with -æt

Where it comes from

From the taxonomic name of the family.

noun scats

  1. Any fish in the family Scatophagidae.

Thesaurus

noun

Similar: scag

Translations

Every language

noun coprophilia

日本語スカトロ sukatoro
Françaisscato
Русскийкопро kopro

intj to leave quickly

Русскийсва́ливать sválivatʹ

intj imperative demand to leave

Русскийбрысь brysʹ

Talk about this word

Cite this
MLA

"scat." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/scat. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

scat. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/scat

Chicago

"scat." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/scat.

BibTeX
@misc{scat_2026,
  title = {scat},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/scat},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}