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 scateō (“gush, team, bubble forth, abound”).

noun

1. A tax; tribute.
2. (UK 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 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

1. (biology) 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. 22 September 2014, James Gorman, “For polar bears, a climate change twist [print version: For hungry polar bears, a climate change twist, International New York Times, 24 September 2014, p 12]”, in The New York Times
   2018 Brent Butt as Brent Herbert Leroy, "Sasquatch Your Language", Corner Gas Animated Wherever legitimate tracks are found there's always some fresh scat, y'know, poo, flop, dumplings.
2. (slang) Heroin.
3. (slang, obsolete) Whiskey.
4. (slang, pornography) Coprophilia.
   Enema queens, like scat queens, are really the scum of the earth. 1988, “Pete”, quoted in Seymour Kleinberg, Alienated Affections: Being Gay in America, Macmillan, page 183
   […] I hear he’s into S&M and scat and all kinds of kinky shit. […] 1998, Dennis Cooper, Guide, Grove Press, page 170
   In short, when venturing into the realm of extreme fetish, ensure you have an extreme understanding of a partner’s boundaries before laying down a plastic tarp for scat play. 2004, Phineas Mollod, Jason Tesauro, The Modern Lover: A Playbook for Suitors, Spouses & Ringless Carousers, Ten Speed Press, page 72
5. (UK, dialect) 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. 1759, Andrew Brice, The Grand Gazetteer, or Topographic Dictionary, page 677

Etymology 3

Probably imitative.

noun

1. (music, jazz) Scat singing.

verb

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

Etymology 4

From scoot, from the root of shoot. Alternatively, from the expression quicker than scat (“in a great hurry”), perhaps representing a hiss followed by the word cat. Compare Swedish schas (“shoo, begone”).

verb

1. (colloquial) To leave quickly.
   We have to scat! Oh-oh—I forgot to look at the clock! 2013, Eldot, The Champions, page 245
   Her mother looked at me in fright and quickly scatted with her daughter back down the hall. 2013, Cecilia Spiros, The Montoya Saga: Premonitions, page 57
   Ali tried talking to this short boy but he quickly scatted away from her. 2015, Alice McCurdy, A Million Dollar Man Not a Dime From a Dozen, page 115
   One last word, then I have to scat. 2019, William Walling, Memo to the Leader, page 85
   Here comes the principal; we'd better scat.

intj

1. (colloquial) An imperative demand to leave, often understood by speaker and listener as impertinent.
   Scat! Shoo! Scat! Geet up! Geet on! Nobody's sick in this house! Nobody wants you here! 1903, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Though Life Us Do Part, page 223
   “Scat! Shoo bird!” The bird merely stared, its dark eyes glinting. 2009, Coleen D'Andrea, The Harbinger, page 30
   'Scat! Go on, scat!' she called, trying to shoo it away. 2014, Marita Conlon-McKenna, The Hat Shop On The Corner, page 24
   Scat! Go on! Get out of here!

Etymology 5

From the taxonomic name of the family.

noun

1. Any fish in the family Scatophagidae