scooch
/skut͡ʃ/
scooch verb: to shift, move aside, or scoot over.
Verb
scooch (third-person singular simple present scooches, present participle scooching, simple past and past participle scooched)
- To shift, move aside, or scoot over.
- "We could watch it all night," Joselle would add, scooching closer to her mother. "If it was on all night."1992, Kevin Henkes, Words of Stone
- Lying on your side, start rocking back and forth, scooching to and fro and kicking.1998, George Ostrom, Shannon Ostrom, Nature
- To crouch.
- Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’[…].” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking...1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
Noun
scooch (plural scooches)
- A small amount; a skosh.
- Clan of the Papaya Whip Stymphalian Bird (just a scooch too long and would probably be better fit for a dessert at Bennigans), Pitchfork Shoebox Clan (maybe if you were a […])2008, Douglas Sarine, Kent Nichols, Ask a Ninja Presents The Ninja Handbook: This Book Looks Forward to Killing You Soon, Crown Archetype, →ISBN
- Strolling to the stereo, Ronny turned the volume dial a scooch to the left, looking at the chef with what Jimmy's father would've called a smack-me face. “Hurry it up.” Chef Alfred was tasting the stock. He rapped the spoon against the ...2018, Lillian Li, Number One Chinese Restaurant: A Novel, Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, page 80
Examples of scooch in a sentence
- Turning over onto his back, he scooched down farther into his bag.2002, Andrew Clements, A Week in the Woods:
- But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
- “Just a scooch?” she adds in a higher-pitched voice pinching her fingers together to highlight a small imaginary space on a spectrum […]2018, Jessalynn Keller, Maureen E. Ryan, Emergent Feminisms: Complicating a Postfeminist Media Culture, Routledge, →ISBN:
Synonyms of scooch
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of scooch
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | scooches |
| present participle | scooching |
| past participle | scooched |
| past | scooched |
| alternative form | scootch |
| alternative form | skooch |
| alternative form | skootch |
| Noun | |
| plural | scooches |
Origin of scooch
Probably a variation of scouch (though Etymonline claims it modern and "imitative"). The verb sense "shift, scoot" is probably influenced by scoot.
As with skoosh, a variant of skosh.
Words formed from scooch
Words that rhyme with scooch
Questions about scooch
- What does scooch mean?
- Scooch means to shift, move aside, or scoot over.
- How do you use scooch in a sentence?
- Turning over onto his back, he scooched down farther into his bag.
- What part of speech is scooch?
- Scooch can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce scooch?
- Scooch is pronounced /skut͡ʃ/.
- What is the past tense of scooch?
- The past tense of scooch is scooched.
Words near scooch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scooch (page history and authors). 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)-Vealhurl-scooch.wav.
Cite this entry: “scooch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scooch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.