"S" Word Origins

scourge

Latin

From Old French forms tracing back to Latin excoriare, \"to strip the skin off,\" the same root that gives us excoriate.

scoury

Origin

From a dialectal sense of scour, "rain shower", from Old Norse skúr (“shower”), + -y.

scout

Latin

From Old French escoute, \"the act of listening,\" ultimately from Latin auscultare, \"to listen\" — the same root behind the word auscultation.

scow

Origin

Borrowed from Dutch schouw.

scowl

Middle English

From Middle English scoulen, likely borrowed from a Scandinavian source related to Danish and Norwegian words meaning \"to scowl.\"

scrabble

Dutch

From Middle Dutch schrabbelen, a repeated form of a verb meaning \"to scrape.\"

scraffle

Origin

See scramble. Compare Middle Dutch schraeffelen (“to scrape; sweep; put together”).

scram

Origin

Probably either: * a clipping of scramble by apocope; or * from dialectal German schramm, the imperative singular form of schrammen (“to scratch, scrape”), from Late Middle High German schramm, schramme (“a graze, scratch”); further etymology unknown.

scramble

Origin

Origin uncertain, though it likely comes from a dialect word meaning \"to rake or scrape together with the hands,\" possibly related to scrabble.

scrambler

Origin

Formed from scramble plus the agent suffix -er.

scrambling

Origin

(linguistics): Coined by American linguist John R. Ross in 1967.

scranch

Origin

Compare Dutch schransen (“to eat greedily”), German schranzen. Compare crunch, scrunch.

scrap

Old Norse

From Old Norse skrap, related to a verb meaning \"to scrape or scratch.\"

scrapbook

Origin

A straightforward combination of scrap and book.

scrape

Old English

From Old Norse and Old English words both meaning \"to scrape or scratch,\" ultimately from an ancient root meaning \"to engrave.\"

scraping

Middle English

From Middle English scrapinge, equivalent to scrape + -ing.

scraplet

Origin

From scrap + -let.

scrapper

Origin

From scrap + -er.

scrapple

Origin

Related to scrape.

scrappy

Origin

Formed from scrap (a fight, or a fragment) plus the adjective ending -y.

scratch

Middle English

From Middle English scracchen, probably a blend of two older English words that both meant \"to scratch.\"

scratcher

Origin

Formed from scratch plus the agent suffix -er.

scratches

Origin

Named for the scratching behaviour the irritation causes in affected animals.

scratchy

Origin

Formed from scratch plus the adjective ending -y.

scrawl

Origin

Possibly from Middle English scraulen (“to spread out one's limbs; sprawl”), itself an alteration of spraulen (“to sprawl”) or craulen, crawlen (“to crawl”). Alternatively, from scrall, a contraction of scrabble.

scrawny

Origin

A variant of an old dialect word, scranny, meaning \"lean\" or \"of poor quality,\" possibly from a Scandinavian root meaning \"rubbish\" or \"shrivelled.\"

scream

Middle English

From Middle English scremen, related to Dutch and Scandinavian words meaning \"to yell\" or \"to terrify.\"

screamer

Origin

Formed from scream plus the agent suffix -er.

scree

Origin

Probably a back-formation from screes, from Old Norse skriða (“landslide, landslip”); compare skríða (“to glide”) (from Proto-Germanic *skrīþaną (“to crawl; to glide; to walk”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreyt-, *(s)ker- (“to bend, turn”)). The word is cognate with Icelandic skriða (“avalanche; landslide, landslip; steep mountain- or hillside made up of gravel and loose rocks”).

screech

Old English

An altered form of an earlier word, scritch, ultimately from Old English and Old Norse verbs meaning to shriek, likely imitative of the sound itself.

screecher

Origin

From screech + -er.

screed

Origin

From Middle English screde [and other forms], a variant of shrede (“fragment, scrap; strip of cloth; strip cut off from a larger piece; band or thread woven into fabric; element, streak”) (whence shred (noun)), from Old English sċrēad, sċrēade (“a piece cut off; paring, shred”), from Proto-Germanic *skraudō (“a piece, shred; a cut, crack”), from *skraudaną (“to cut up, shred”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”). The English word is cognate with Old Frisian skrēd. Doublet of escrow, scroll, and shred.

screen

Old French

From Old French escren, probably borrowed from a Dutch word for a shelter or barrier, ultimately from a Proto-Germanic root meaning covering or protection.

screening

Origin

Formed from screen plus the noun/verb ending -ing.

screenland

Origin

From screen + -land.

screenplay

Origin

A straightforward blend of "screen" (the cinema screen) and "play" (a dramatic script), coined once movies needed their own term distinct from stage plays.

screenwriter

Origin

From screen + writer — someone who writes specifically for the screen rather than the stage or page.

screw

Latin

Traces back through Old French escroue ("nut, screw-socket") to a Latin word for a female pig — the corkscrew shape reminded people of a boar's anatomy, oddly enough. A separate Germanic strand meaning "to cut" likely blended in along the way.

screwable

Origin

From screw + -able.

screwball

Origin

From screw + ball, describing the pitch's odd twisting motion; the sense of "crazy person" grew out of that same idea of something spinning off in an unexpected direction.

screwdriver

Origin

A simple compound of screw + driver — a tool that "drives" screws. The cocktail sense came much later, reportedly named for oil workers who stirred their drinks with an actual screwdriver.

screwed

Origin · 1600

Grew out of "screw" meaning to apply pressure or coercion, evoking torture devices like thumbscrews — by the 1600s it meant being in an inescapable bind. The "drunk" sense followed later, linked to the phrase "a screw loose."

screwfaced

Origin

From screwface + -ed.

screwup

Origin

Formed from the phrasal verb "screw up," turned into a single noun.

screwy

Origin · 1820

From screw + -y. Originally (1820s) meant "tipsy," and only later, by the 1880s, came to mean "crazy" or "odd."

scribble

Middle English

From Middle English scribblen, built on "scribe" (to write) plus a frequentative ending suggesting repeated, quick action.

scribe

Latin

From Latin scrība ("secretary, clerk"), from scrībere ("to write") — a word originally meaning "to scratch," since early writing was carved rather than inked.

scrim

Origin

Attested since the end of the 18th century. Origin unknown. In one of the earliest mentions, "The Statistical Account of Scotland", 1793, by John Sinclair, page 593, we read in a paragraph devoted to weavers: "Besides these, they are now much employed in working a thin kind of coarse linen called Silesias, vulgarly Scrims, whereof each piece is 27 or 30 inches broad".