Part 153

Scut"tle, n. A quick pace; a short run. Spectator.

Scut"tle (?), n. [OF. escoutille, F. éscoutille, cf. Sp. escotilla; probably akin to Sp. escotar to cut a thing so as to make it fit, to hollow a garment about the neck, perhaps originally, to cut a bosom-shaped piece out, and of Teutonic origin; cf. D. schoot lap, bosom, G. schoss, Goth. skauts the hem of a garnment. Cf. Sheet an expanse.] 1. A small opening in an outside wall or covering, furnished with a lid. Specifically: (a) (Naut.) A small opening or hatchway in the deck of a ship, large enough to admit a man, and with a lid for covering it, also, a like hole in the side or bottom of a ship. (b) An opening in the roof of a house, with a lid.

2. The lid or door which covers or closes an opening in a roof, wall, or the like.

Scuttle butt, or Scuttle cask (Naut.), a butt or cask with a large hole in it, used to contain the fresh water for daily use in a ship. Totten.

Scut"tle, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Scuttled (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Scuttling.] 1. To cut a hole or holes through the bottom, deck, or sides of (as of a ship), for any purpose.

2. To sink by making holes through the bottom of; as, to scuttle a ship.

||Scu"tum (?), n.; pl. Scuta (#). [L.] 1. (Rom. Antiq.) An oblong ||shield made of boards or wickerwork covered with leather, with ||sometimes an iron rim; -- carried chiefly by the heavy-armed ||infantry.

2. (O. Eng. Law) A penthouse or awning. [Obs.] Burrill.

3. (Zoöl.) (a) The second and largest of the four parts forming the upper surface of a thoracic segment of an insect. It is preceded by the prescutum and followed by the scutellum. See the Illust. under Thorax. (b) One of the two lower valves of the operculum of a barnacle.

||Scyb"a*la (?), n. pl. [NL., fr. Gr. sky`balon dung.] (Med.) Hardened ||masses of feces.

Scye (s), n. Arm scye, a cutter's term for the armhole or part of the armhole of the waist of a garment.

Scyle (sl), v. t. [AS. scylan to withdraw or remove.] To hide; to secrete; to conceal. [Obs.]

Scyl"la (?), n. A dangerous rock on the Italian coast opposite the whirpool Charybdis on the coast of Sicily, -- both personified in classical literature as ravenous monsters. The passage between them was formerly considered perilous; hence, the saying "Between Scylla and Charybdis," signifying a great peril on either hand.

||Scyl*læ"a (?), n. [NL. See Scylla.] (Zoöl.) A genus of oceanic ||nudibranchiate mollusks having the small branched gills situated on ||the upper side of four fleshy lateral lobes, and on the median caudal ||crest.

In color and form these mollusks closely imitate the fronds of sargassum and other floating seaweeds among which they live.

Scyl*la"ri*an (?), n. (Zoöl.) One of a family (Scyllaridæ) of macruran Crustacea, remarkable for the depressed form of the body, and the broad, flat antennæ. Also used adjectively.

Scyl"lite (?), n. (Chem.) A white crystalline substance of a sweetish taste, resembling inosite and metameric with dextrose. It is extracted from the kidney of the dogfish (of the genus Scyllium), the shark, and the skate.

Scym"e*tar (?), n. See Scimiter.

||Scy"pha (?), n.; pl. Scyphae (#). [NL.] (Bot.) See Scyphus, 2 (b).

Scy"phi*form (?), a. [L. scyphus a cup + -form.] (Bot.) Cup-shaped.

||Scy*phis"to*ma (?), n.; pl. Scyphistomata (#), Scyphistomæ (#). [NL., ||fr. Gr. sky`fos a cup + sto`ma the mouth.] (Zoöl.) The young attached ||larva of Discophora in the stage when it resembles a hydroid, or ||actinian.

||Scy`pho*bran"chi*i (?), n. pl. [NL., from Gr. sky`fos a cup + ||bra`gchion a gill.] (Zoöl.) An order of fishes including the ||blennioid and gobioid fishes, and other related families.

||Scy`pho*me*du"sæ (?), n. pl. [NL., fr. Gr. sky`fos cup + NL. medusa.] ||(Zoöl.) Same as Acraspeda, or Discophora.

||Scy*phoph"o*ri (?), n. pl. [NL., fr. Gr. sky`fos a cup + fe`rein to ||bear.] (Zoöl.) An order of fresh-water fishes inhabiting tropical ||Africa. They have rudimentary electrical organs on each side of the ||tail.

Scy"phus (?), n.; pl. Scyphi (#). [L., a cup, Gr. sky`fos.] 1. (Antiq.) A kind of large drinking cup, -- used by Greeks and Romans, esp. by poor folk.

2. (Bot.) (a) The cup of a narcissus, or a similar appendage to the corolla in other flowers. (b) A cup-shaped stem or podetium in lichens. Also called scypha. See Illust. of Cladonia pyxidata, under Lichen.

Scythe (s), n. [OE. sithe, AS. sðe, sigðe; akin to Icel. sigðr a sickle, LG. segd, seged, seed, seid, OHG. segansa sickle, scythe, G. sense scythe, and to E. saw a cutting instrument. See Saw.] [Written also sithe and sythe.] 1. An instrument for mowing grass, grain, or the like, by hand, composed of a long, curving blade, with a sharp edge, made fast to a long handle, called a snath, which is bent into a form convenient for use.

The sharp-edged scythe shears up the spiring grass.