▪ I. scute, n.1
(skjuːt)
Also 7 sceute, skute.
[ad. L. scūtum shield, whence OF. escut, escu (F. écu).]
1. An English name for the French coin called écu: see écu, escu. Obs. exc. Hist.
| c 1400 Three Kings of Cologne 100 As men clepe in þis contrey gold of biȝende þe see Scutys, Motouns or floryns. 1420 Treaty of Troyes in Rymer Fœdera (1709) IX. 916 The forsayd Katerine shall take and haue Douer in our Roiaulme of Englond..to the Somme of forty Mill. Scutes be Yere; of the whiche Tweyne algates shall be worth a Noble Englyssh. c 1483 Caxton Dialogues 17 Scutes of the kyng [F. escutz du roy], Ryallis nobles of englond. c 1522 Skelton Why Nat to Courte 167 With scutes and crownes of gold I drede we are bought and solde. 1549–50 Edw. VI Jrnl. Rem. (Roxb.) 251 The French to pay 200,000 scutes within three days after the delivery of Boullein. 1606 G. W[oodcocke] Lives Emperors in Hist. Justine L l 4, The King of England demanded of the Emperor interest for fiue hundred thousand skutes which he had borrowed. 1611 Speed Hist. Gr. Brit. ix. xv. (1623) 812 Forty thousand sceutes, that is, two to a Noble. 1671 H. M. tr. Erasm. Colloq. 80 Peter bought a maids kiss for a scute [orig. scutato emit]. |
¶ b. Used as a (? jocular) name for an English coin; ? a crown. Obs.
| 1472 Sir J. Paston Let. 8 Jan. in P. Lett. III. 33, I beseche yow to remember my brother to doo hys deveyr thatt I maye have agayn my stuffe,..how so evyr he doo, thoghe I scholde gyffe xxti Scutes by hys advyse to my Lady Brandon. 1472 ― Let. 22 Nov. Ibid. 64, I thynke verrely to come to gyff him xx scutys. |
c. Used vaguely for a coin of small value.
| 1594 Nashe Christ's T. To Rdr. *ij b, Therein I imitate rich men who hauing gathered store of white single money together, conuert a number of those small little scutes into great peeces of gold, such as double Pistols and Portugues. 1596 ― Saffron-Walden Q 1, The diuell a scute had he to pay the reckoning. 1605 Chapman All Fools v. i. H 4 b, And from a paire of Gloues of halfe a crowne To twenty crownes: will to a very scute Smell out the price. 1834 Sir H. Taylor Artevelde i. i. iii, Five hundred marks—I'll bate you not a scute. |
† 2. An escutcheon. Obs.
| 1575 Gascoigne Posies, Flowers 51 He..bare the selfe same armes that I dyd quarter in my scute. |
3. A disk, small piece. Now only dial., a small patch of leather on the sole of a boot or shoe; also, a metal heel- or toe-plate. (See Eng. Dial. Dict.)
In the first quot. prob. merely transf. from sense 1.
| 1635 T. Heywood Hierarchie ix. 574 Round scutes of horne, and pieces of old leather. 1775 Ash, Scute,..a small piece of leather set on a shoe. |
4. Zool. A large scale or bony plate, forming part of the integument of certain animals, as the tortoise, armadillo, echinoderms, various fishes, etc.
| 1848 Owen in Times 14 Nov. 8/6 Without scales, scutes, or other conspicuous modifications of hard and naked cuticle. 1870 Gillmore tr. Figuier's Reptiles & Birds i. 10 The stiff epidermal scutes crossing the under surface of the body. 1873 Mivart Elem. Anat. 278 The ‘scales’ of Fishes should rather be termed ‘scutes’. 1887 Encycl. Brit. XXII. 107/2 A scute is a hardening of the outermost portion of the dermis, with an investment from the deepest layer of the epidermis. |
▪ II. scute, n.2 Zool.
(skjuːt)
[f. scutellar a.]
The name of any of a group of closely linked X-linked genes in Drosophila which act to reduce the number of scutellar bristles; also, a phenotype produced by these genes.
| 1923 Bridges & Morgan Third-Chromosome Group Mutant Characters Drosophila Melanogaster 160 Scute arose in the line selected for increased number of scutellar bristles. 1923 Anat. Rec. XXVI. 397 In three of these species the closely linked [sc. to yellow] character ‘scute’ or ‘scutellar’ is also known. 1940 Genetics XXV. 566 The great phenotypic similarity of the three scutes in question is an expression of the extreme similarity of their gene arrangements. 1974 Goodenough & Levine Genetics xi. 500 The Basc chromosome..carries the Bar eye gene B.., the apricot eye color gene apr, and a double inversion involving the scute (sc) region of the chromosome. |
▪ III. scute
obs. form of scout n.3