Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
Hide Quotations Hide Etymology
About this entry:
First published 1971 (SND Vol. VIII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
SCUTCH, v.1, n.1 Also skutch. [skʌtʃ]
I. v. 1. To beat or thresh the stems of flax with a hand-instrument or mechanical contrivance in order to separate the fibre from the woody part (Sc. 1808 Jam.); to dress cotton or hemp in a similar way. Comb. scutching-spurkle, = scutcher (1) below. Also in Eng. technical usage.Sc. 1733 P. Lindsay Interest Scot. 159:
The Boys that attend the breaking and scutching of the [flax] mill.Abd. 1776 Abd. Journal (8 April):
The Loft above contains the Scutching Engine for Cleaning of the rough Flax, large enough to employ four or five Persons at one time.Ags. 1795 Stat. Acc.1 I. 428:
Ten bolls of wheat are raised on an acre, and sixteen stone of scutched flax.Sc. 1812 Scott Letters (Cent. Ed.) III. 73:
A heckle is the many-tooth'd implement with which hemp is broken and scutch'd.Lnk. 1845 Stat. Acc.2 VI. 146:
In the year 1797, a new machine for cleaning cotton was invented. It is called a skutching or blowing machine.Mry. 1889 T. L. Mason Rafford 17:
Skutchin lint was their chief occupation at night.Ayr. 1896 J. Lamb Ayr. Parish 227:
The steps through which the flax passed from flax to cloth were: — rippling, steeping, drying, cloving, scutching, heckling.Kcb. 1901 R. D. Trotter Gall. Gossip 308:
Some folk scutch't an cairdit their lint at hame.
Hence scutcher, skutcher, (1) a flat stick or hand-bat with one thin edge used for the purpose, or an adapted form of this in a machine, a flax-swingle (Kcd., Ags. 1825 Jam.).Sc. 1766 Complete Farmer (1808) s.v. Hemp:
The workman strikes it [a handful of hemp] with the sharpened edge of a long, flat, and straight piece of wood, commonly called a swingle-hand, or scutcher.Sc. 1771 Encycl. Britannica II. 604:
A lint-mill with horizontal scutchers upon a perpendicular axle.Sc. 1799 Trans. Highl. Soc. I. 55:
Breaks and scutchers, of a simple and proper construction, should be kept at mills, smithies, etc.Lnk. 1845 Stat. Acc.2 VI. 146:
The dust or small flur separated from the cotton by the blows of the skutcher is carried off.Ags. 1934 G. M. Martin Dundee Worthies 34:
Peter Neucater and his scutcher.
(2) a small wooden club or mallet used by tinkers in hammering tin.Fif. 1722 Rothes MSS. (Cooper's account):
To the Breuhous. Aughest the 1: a neu bottom to the skutcher . . . . .3s. 4d.Abd. 1929 J. Milne Dreams o' Buchan 6:
I gar the wids ring an' the birds looder sing As I wheep roon' the tin wi' my scutcher.
2. To straighten out the threads in a hank of yarn which have begun to warp from wetting, by tautening the loops of the hank with a scutching-stick (wm.Sc. c.1910).
3. To strike off the ears of corn from the stalk with a stick as a method of threshing. Hence scutcher, one of the beaters on the drum of a threshing-machine.Sc. 1797 Encycl. Britannica XVIII. 507:
While the scutchers strike off the grain from the straw as it passes through.Lth. 1829 G. Robertson Recollections 434:
The velocity of the scutchers on the drum was sixty-one feet in a second.Sc. 1844 H. Stephens Bk. Farm II. 271:
The roughs may have time to be thoroughly scutched by the drum.
4. Fig., used refl.: to spruce oneself up.Gsw. 1807 J. Chirrey Misc. Poetry 67:
I scutsh'd me up, an' ventur'd west.
II. n. 1. The stick used for scutching flax, a swingle, or the corresponding part in a scutching machine, one of the flutings or projecting teeth on the drum of a threshing-machine which beat the grain from the straw (Sc. 1825 Jam.).Sc. 1791 Encycl. Britannica VIII. 291:
Common flax, which from the skutch proceeds to the heckle.e.Lth. 1805 R. Somerville Agric. E. Lth. 77:
The purpose of separating the grain from the straw might be accomplished by skutches acting upon the sheaves by their velocity and beating out the grain.Rnf. 1880 W. Grossart Shotts 219:
The “scutch” or “beater” was a wooden instrument about 18 in. long.
2. The refuse or woody fibre removed from flax by scutching; the refuse or scrapings of hides taken off in currying and used in glue-making.Sc. 1869 J. Morton Cycl. Agric. I. 279:
The whole of the currier's waste, made in Scotland, termed “Scutch,” is sent to Hull for the purpose of mixing with bones.
