Scotch
verbTo put a firm and decisive end to something, such as a rumour, plan, or attempt.
How to spell scotch
6 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce scotch
What does scotch mean?
- verbTo put a firm and decisive end to something, such as a rumour, plan, or attempt.
- nounWhisky distilled in Scotland, often taken neat or with a little water.
Scotch in a sentence
-
verb
The official statement was meant to scotch the rumours about layoffs.
-
noun
He poured a measure of scotch over a single cube of ice.
-
verb
A single phone call was enough to scotch their plan to sell the house.
-
noun
The bar stocked a rare malt scotch that cost a fortune per glass.
Where does scotch come from?
Language of origin: Other
The verb scotch in the sense of putting a firm end to something has a tangled and rather uncertain history. It first appears in late medieval English as 'scocchen', meaning to cut, score, or gash, and may derive from the Anglo-Norman 'escocher', meaning to notch or nick. Shakespeare gave it lasting fame in Macbeth with the line 'we have scotched the snake, not killed it', where it clearly meant to wound or maim rather than to destroy completely; over time the figurative sense drifted toward decisively stamping something out, such as a rumour or a plan. A separate strand gives us the wedge or block called a scotch, used to stop a wheel from rolling, again carrying the idea of arresting motion. The drink called Scotch is unrelated, being simply a clipping of 'Scotch whisky', that is, whisky from Scotland. Because the origins are genuinely murky, lexicographers treat the cutting sense as obscure in detail even though the modern uses are clear.
How the word is built
- scotch (single root verb/noun; no separable affixes)
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.