▪ I. scatch1
(skætʃ)
Forms: 5–6 scache, 6 skache, 7 skatch, 6–8 scatch, 9 dial. sketch.
[a. ONF. escache = Central OF. eschasse (mod.F. échasse), whence Du. schaats skate n.2]
1. A stilt; usually pl. scatches. Obs. exc. dial.
| 1545 Elyot Dict., Grallatores, they which dooe goe on styltes or skaches. 1570 Levins Manip. 5/44 A Scache, grallus. 1653 Urquhart Rabelais ii. i, Others grew in the legs, and to see them, you would have said they had been..men walking upon stilts or scatches. 1681 W. Robertson Phraseol. Gen. (1693) 915 Never,..till geese go on scatches. 1730 Bailey (fol.), Scatches, Stilts to put the Feet in to walk in dirty Places. 1893 Baring-Gould Cheap Jack Zita xii, Sketches?—does that word puzzle you..? They are what some folk call stilts. |
2. ? A scaffold-pole. [So. F. échasse.]
| 1420 Searchers Verdicts in Surtees Misc. (1890) 15 William of Alne..sall fynde the brygges, the scaches, nayles, and all the tymbre that sall ga un to the gutter. |
▪ II. † scatch2 Obs.
Also 5–6 scache.
[ad. It. scaccia (ˈskatʃa), whence F. escache.]
An oval bridle-bit. Also scatch-mouth.
| 1565–80 Blundevil Art Riding iii. xxiii. 51 Some are called Canon bits, some scatches. 1598 Florio, Scaccia, the mouth of a bit called a scache. 1607 Markham Caval. ii. (1617) 56 The next bytt you shall vse after the Cannon, shall bee the plaine Scatch. 1611 Cotgr., Scace, a Scatch bit. 1704 Dict. Rust. (1726) s.v. Bit, The ends of a Scatch⁓mouth can never fail, by reason of their being over-lapped. |