Word.ws English Dictionary

scutch

/skʌt͡ʃ/

scutch verb: to beat or whip; to drub. Also the alternative form of skutch.

scutch: to beat or whip; to drub
Image: FBQ, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

scutch (third-person singular simple present scutches, present participle scutching, simple past and past participle scutched)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal, obsolete) To beat or whip; to drub.
  2. To separate the woody fibre from (flax, hemp, etc.) by beating; to swingle.
    • 2005, John Martin, Warren Leonard, David Stamp, and Richard Waldren, Principles of Field Crop Production (4th Edition), section 32.10 “Processing Fiber Flax”, the title of subsection 32.10.3 “Scutching”.
    • His prey was more often the over-scutched huswives, the threepenny whores with well-whipped backs, both from the beadle and their own hot-blooded clients.1976, Robert Nye, Falstaff

Noun (1)

scutch (countable and uncountable, plural scutches)

  1. (countable) A wooden implement shaped like a large knife used to separate the valuable fibres of flax or hemp by beating them and scraping from it the woody or coarse portions.
    Synonyms:
    scutcher, swingle
  2. (uncountable) The woody fibre of flax or hemp; the refuse of scutched flax or hemp.
    • the labourers went peacefully about their usual employments, some driving teams of ponderous horses at the plough, others burning scutch and brambles, the rubbish of field and forest.1897, Vincent J. Leatherdale, A Lady of Wales
  3. (countable) A bricklayer's small picklike tool with two cutting edges (or prongs) for dressing stone or cutting and trimming bricks.
    Synonyms:
    scotch

Noun (2)

scutch (plural scutches)

  1. A tuft or clump of grass.

Also used as

scutch is also the alternative form of skutch.

Synonyms of scutch

Forms of scutch

Verb
third-person singular presentscutches
present participlescutching
past participlescutched
pastscutched
Noun
pluralscutches

Origin of scutch

From Middle English *scucchen, from Anglo-Norman escucher, from Vulgar Latin *excuticāre.

From Irish.

Words formed from scutch

Phrases with scutch

Words that rhyme with scutch

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about scutch

What does scutch mean?
Scutch means to beat or whip; to drub.
What part of speech is scutch?
Scutch can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce scutch?
Scutch is pronounced /skʌt͡ʃ/.
What is the past tense of scutch?
The past tense of scutch is scutched.

Words near scutch in the dictionary

  1. Scutari
  2. scutate
  3. scutated
  4. scutation
  5. scutations
  6. scutch
  7. scutch grass
  8. scutch grasses
  9. scutched
  10. scutcheon
  11. scutcheoned

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scutch (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-scutch.wav.

Cite this entry: “scutch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scutch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.