scatter

Etymology

From Middle English scateren, skateren, (also schateren, see shatter), from Old English *sceaterian, probably from a dialect of Old Norse. Possibly related to Proto-Indo-European *skey- (“to cut, split, shatter”). Compare Middle Dutch scheteren (“to scatter”), Low German schateren, Dutch schateren (“to burst out laughing”); and is apparently remotely akin to Ancient Greek σκεδάννυμι (skedánnumi, “scatter, disperse”). and Tocharian B kät- (“to scatter, sow seeds”). Doublet of shatter.

verb

1. (ergative) To (cause to) separate and go in different directions; to disperse.
   The crowd scattered in terror.
2. (transitive) To distribute loosely as by sprinkling.
   Her ashes were scattered at the top of a waterfall.
   Why should my muse enlarge on Libyan swains, / Their scattered cottages, and ample plains?
3. (transitive, physics) To deflect (radiation or particles).
   Chasca's ring is unique. It appears to be, for lack of a better term, a massive piece of alien "installation art." The rings are made of small pieces of synthetic material, and are almost invisible from space. From the ground, they catch and scatter the light of Matano in picturesque ways. It is not known who created the ring or when. 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Chasca planetary description
4. (intransitive) To occur or fall at widely spaced intervals.
5. (transitive) To frustrate, disappoint, and overthrow.
   to scatter hopes or plans
6. (transitive) To be dispersed upon.
   Desiccated stalks scattered the fields.
   […] its beauty is obscured by the environmental waste and loose trash that scatter the countryside. 2016, J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, page 21
7. (transitive, baseball) Of a pitcher: to keep down the number of hits or walks.

noun

1. The act of scattering or dispersing.
2. A collection of dispersed objects.
   The Los Angeles Basin evolved as a mobility surface principally through the combination of an initial system of electric railways connecting a scatter of agricultural settlement settlements. 2006, Theano S. Terkenli, Anne-Marie d'Hauteserre, Landscapes of a New Cultural Economy of Space, Springer Science & Business Media, page 84
   The plot of all our sea-level index points shows a scatter of data points that do not overlap […] 2015, Ian Shennan, Antony J. Long, Benjamin P. Horton, Handbook of Sea-Level Research, John Wiley & Sons, page 19