Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To move with a clattering, scurrying sound.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To scoot or run hastily; scurry; scuttle.
- noun A hasty, precipitate run.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb Prov. Eng. To run quickly; to scurry; to scuttle.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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A November day, clouds the color of bruises scutter across the sky.
BLACKBIRD marci stillerman 2011
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I've woken at dawn to a sleeping village, nursed a mug of coffee in the chill of the open cockpit, watched a moorhen scutter across the smoking water, heard church bells chime the hour and felt—as it's so easy to do on the canals—at one with England.
The Best Way Through England Is Wet Jonathan Raban 2011
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They come down from the walls, they scutter greedily in from far corners of the veranda.
The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004
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They come down from the walls, they scutter greedily in from far corners of the veranda.
The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004
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Immediately there was a yell - a scutter - a run - a positive tumult.
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What replaced them was a sound infinitely more sinister, one that never failed to produce a scutter of gooseflesh up her back: a low, atonal noise, like the warble of a siren be - ing turned by a man without much longer to live.
Wizard and Glass King, Stephen 1997
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"Christ, did ye see 'em scutter like wee mousies wi 'a cat on their tails?" said one patient to another, seemingly oblivious of the nasty powder burn that had singed his left arm from knuckles to shoulder.
Dragonfly in Amber Gabaldon, Diana 1992
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The cat, in a lithe movement that argued long practice, fled like a skimming stone to where the gnarled grape-vine twisted drunkenly round the trellis, and shot up it with a scutter of sharp claws.
My Family and Other Animals Durrell, Gerald, 1925- 1956
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A wild scutter in the water, a plunge and a break for the head-waters of the Clackamas was my reward, and the hot toil of reeling-in with one eye under the water and the other on the top joint of the rod, was renewed.
Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 Charles Herbert Sylvester
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Oakshott's Barn, as they had done many and many a time before; a rabbit darted across the clearing, a blackbird called to his mate in the thicket, but save for this, nothing stirred; a great quiet was upon the place, a stillness so profound that Barnabas could distinctly hear the scutter of a rat in the shadows behind him, and the slow, heavy breathing of the sleeper down below.
The Amateur Gentleman Jeffery Farnol 1915
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