scarper
Syllables: scarp·erUK/ˈskɑːpə//ˈskɑɹpəɹ/
scarper verb: chiefly in scarper the letty: to depart quickly or run away from (a place); to flee.
Verb
scarper (third-person singular simple present scarpers, present participle scarpering, simple past and past participle scarpered)
- Chiefly in scarper the letty: to depart quickly or run away from (a place); to flee.
- We were in debt with the landlady, and Joe and I had decided that none of us should be allowed to "scarper the letty," which means to sneak out of the lodgings without paying. The good lady might have to wait for her money—that was obvious—but we were stuck in Manchester until we could pay and get...1934 May, Philip Allingham, chapter XVI, in Cheapjack […], London: William Heinemann, published March 1935, →OCLC, page 205
- jean: We can't all spend our time nailing our suitcases to the floor, and shin out of the window. / archie: Scarper the letty.1957, John Osborne, The Entertainer: A Play, Faber paper covered edition, London: Faber and Faber […], published 1961, →OCLC, Act III, number 10, pages 76–77
- To depart quickly; to escape, to flee, to run away.
- A horse takes fright and "scarpers," or runs away.1862, [C. Clough Robinson], “SCARPER”, in The Dialect of Leeds and Its Neighbourhood, Illustrated by Conversations and Tales of Common Life, etc. […], London: John Russell Smith, […], →OCLC, page 398
- "Dowse the glims!" said he. Out went the lights, as he continued, "That sneak Whiskers have just blown the gaff to old Slow-Coach, and he'll be here in two two's to give you beans—so scarper, laddies—scarper!" Suiting the action to the word, he "scarpered" through the window into the garden, […]1904, John Coleman, “Schooldays”, in Fifty Years of an Actor’s Life […], volume I, London: Hutchinson & Co. […], →OCLC, page 54
Noun
scarper (plural scarpers)
- Chiefly in do a scarper: an act of departing quickly or running away; an escape, a flight.
- As a matter of fact we were all pritty flabergasted, for although we had all planned to do a scarper none of us realy thought we would have the guts to do it.1958, Frank Norman, “Part Two: Chelmsford”, in Bang to Rights: An Account of Prison Life, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC, page 63
scarper meaning in Tamil and Malayalam
scarper in Tamil
- சுரண்டி
scarper in Malayalam
- run, run away, flee
- ഓടിക്കളയുക, അപ്രത്യക്ഷമാകുക, കടക്കുക, ഓടിരക്ഷപ്പെടുക, സ്ഥലംവിടുക, ആപത്തിൽ നിന്നു പലായനം ചെയ്യുക
Examples of scarper in a sentence
- We were in debt with the landlady, and Joe and I had decided that none of us should be allowed to "scarper the letty," which means to sneak out of the lodgings without paying.1934 May, Philip Allingham, chapter XVI, in Cheapjack […], London: William Heinemann, published March 1935, →OCLC, page 205:
- The tramps scarpered, the street-traders pushing prams scarpered, half of Dublin scarpered as if they all had something to hide.1998, Ardal O’Hanlon, chapter 1, in The Talk of the Town, London: Sceptre, published 1999, →ISBN, page 7:
Forms of scarper
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | scarpers |
| present participle | scarpering |
| past participle | scarpered |
| past | scarpered |
| Noun | |
| plural | scarpers |
Origin of scarper
The verb is probably borrowed from Italian scappare (“to run away, escape, flee”), from Vulgar Latin *excappāre (“to escape”), from Latin ex- (prefix meaning ‘away; out’) + cappa (“(Late Latin) cape, cloak (usually with a hood); (Medieval Latin) cap; headwear”) (further etymology uncertain, probably ultimately from caput (“head”), from dialectal Proto-Indo-European *káput (“head”)) + -āre (the present active infinitive of -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)). Around World War I (1914–1918), the English word was influenced by the Cockney rhyming slang term Scapa Flow (“to go”). Doublet of escape and scape. The noun is derived from the verb.
Words formed from scarper
Words that rhyme with scarper
Questions about scarper
- What does scarper mean?
- Scarper means chiefly in scarper the letty: to depart quickly or run away from (a place); to flee.
- What is scarper in Tamil?
- Scarper in Tamil is சுரண்டி. See Scarper meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use scarper in a sentence?
- We were in debt with the landlady, and Joe and I had decided that none of us should be allowed to "scarper the letty," which means to sneak out of the lodgings without paying.
- What part of speech is scarper?
- Scarper can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce scarper?
- Scarper is pronounced /ˈskɑːpə/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of scarper?
- The past tense of scarper is scarpered.
Words near scarper in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scarper (page history and authors); scarper (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); scarper (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-scarper.wav, En-au-scarper.ogg.
Cite this entry: “scarper.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scarper. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.