scupper

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an opening in a ship's side, or in a building wall, through which water drains from a deck, floor, or flat roof

   Rainwater poured from the deck through the starboard scupper.

2. 2
   verb

   chiefly in British English, to defeat a plan or put an end to an undertaking

   A funding shortfall could scupper the entire restoration project.

3. 3
   verb

   in historical military slang, to ambush and kill or overwhelm

   The scouts feared that enemy fighters would scupper the isolated patrol.

Simplified etymology

Scupper, originally one of the openings in a ship's side through which water drains, probably comes from Old French escopir, meaning “to spit.” The verb became 19th-century military slang for surprising and massacring someone, then acquired the sense “ruin or destroy” in the early 20th century. It is uncertain whether this verb is historically the same word as the nautical noun.

The noun is from Middle English skopper, perhaps from an Anglo-French word based on escopir ("to spit out"). The unrelated verb is of unknown origin; it first appeared in nineteenth-century military slang for ambushing and killing, then broadened to defeating a plan.

Topics

External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary