scupper1
/ˈskʌpə
/noun (usually scuppers)
1A hole in a ship’s side to carry water overboard from the deck.Nylon panels on the sides of the Geckos eject water like scuppers on a tramp steamer - hop out of the river, take five steps, and the bilges are dry....
- Fleets of great armed ships, loaded to the scuppers with silver and other treasures from the Viceroyalties of Peru and New Spain, were assembled and outfitted at Havana.
- Franklin had noticed that the wake of one ship he saw was particularly smooth, and was told that the cooks had probably just discharged greasy water through the scuppers.
1.1An outlet in the side of a building for draining water.The parapets were built with scuppers to remove the water from the roof, but when the scuppers become plugged, as they inevitably do, a dam is created that traps water on the roof....
- Then a deluge, arches of water flowing from the scuppers, splashing onto the rocks, connecting the house with the earth.
- We didn't want to run any downspouts, so we used scuppers instead, and put pavers in the earth where the rain would hit.
Origin
Late Middle English: perhaps via Anglo-Norman French from Old French escopir 'to spit'; compare with German Speigatt, literally 'spit hole'.
This was first used as military slang in the sense ‘kill, especially in an ambush’. The origin is uncertain. It may be from scupper in the sense of the opening on a ship to allow water to drain, with the idea that a fallen sailor would roll into the scuppers, but since we do not know the origin of this word, we do not get much further. The sense ‘sink’ dates from the 1970s, perhaps through confusion with scuttle.
Rhymes
scupper2
/ˈskʌpə/verb [with object]
1chiefly British Sink (a ship or its crew) deliberately: the ship was scuppered and seriously damaged...
- Against extraordinary odds Davie and Alan fight their way out of their ship's cabin - and in a moment of desperation Alan recklessly scuppers the ship when he ignites a barrel of gunpowder in the hold.
Synonyms
sink, scuttle, submerge, send to the bottom, open the seacocks in
2 informal Prevent from working or succeeding; thwart: plans for a bypass were scuppered by a public inquiry...
- Being a surgeon or concert pianist is an advantage here - the disc is naturally misshaped for use in the round CD-Rom drive, so half an inch either way scuppers the exercise.
- If you're asking whether this scuppers the deal, the answer is absolutely not.
- And a growing environmentalist movement in the country has already scuppered a leading mining project.
Synonyms
ruin, wreck, destroy, devastate, wreak havoc on, damage, spoil, mar, injure, blast, blight, smash, shatter, dash, torpedo, scotch, mess up;
sabotage, poison
informal louse up, screw up, foul up, put the kibosh on, banjax, do for, blow a hole in, nix, queer
British informal cock up, dish
Australian informal euchre, cruel
vulgar slang fuck up
archaic bring to naught
Origin
Late 19th century (as military slang in the sense 'kill, especially in an ambush'): of unknown origin. The sense 'sink' dates from the 1970s.
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