Other forms: scattered, scattering, scatters
To scatter things is to throw or drop them so they land all over the place instead of in one pile. Scattering seed across a bare patch of lawn; toys scattered from the door to the far wall.
It works with no object at all, and then it is about a group breaking apart in every direction: the pigeons scattered when the door slammed. Scattered does much of the daily work — scattered showers on the forecast, scattered applause, papers scattered over a desk, a village of scattered houses. You scatter ashes, and that is the one solemn use. In physics, light scatters when it meets small particles in the air, and that scattering is why the sky is blue. Keep it apart from drop and spill: scatter is the spreading out, not the falling.
1verbscatterTo throw or drop things so that they spread over a wide area.
“He scattered breadcrumbs along the path.”
2verbgroupOf a group: to move suddenly in all directions.
“The crowd scattered as soon as the rain started.”
3verblightTo make light or small particles bounce off in many directions.
“Dust in the air scatters the sunlight.”
Also accepted in games: disperse
Scatter runs straight back to Middle English scateren, and there the trail stops. Medieval scribes never settled it either: the same word turns up as skateren and as schateren, spelled about as loosely as the thing it names.
Middle English
scateren
English, today
scatter
From Middle English scateren, skateren, also schateren,
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA