Other forms: scats
Scat is jazz singing on nonsense syllables. Scat singing, break into scat, a scat chorus.
The singer improvises a line as an instrument would, using sounds instead of words, and Ella Fitzgerald is the standard by which any of it is judged. Scat also means animal droppings, in the language of trackers, and scat is a word for go away.
1nounscatJazz singing on nonsense syllables.
“The jazz singer broke into scat, singing 'doo-bee-doo' in time with the trumpet.”
scat is a singing style.
The jazz sense is of uncertain origin, probably imitating the syllables themselves; it is recorded from the 1920s.
Proto-Indo-European
*skatn-
Proto-Germanic
*skattaz — cattle, kine, wealth
Old Norse
skattr — wealth, treaure
Old English
sċeatt — property, goods
Middle English
scet
English, today
scat
Built from
From Middle English scet, schat, from Old English sċeatt (“property, goods”) and Old Norse skattr (“wealth, treaure”); both from Proto-Germanic skattaz (“cattle, kine, wealth”), from Proto-Indo-European skatn-, skat- (“to jump, skip, splash out”). Cognate with Scots scat (“tax, levy, charge, payment, bribe”), West Frisian skat (“treasure, darling”), Dutch schat (“treasure, hoard, darling, sweetheart”), German Schatz (“treasure, hoard, wealth, store, darling, sweetheart”), Swedish skatt (“treasure, tax, duty”), Icelandic skattur (“tax, tribute”), Latin scateō (“gush, team, bubble forth, abound”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA