Other forms: scuttled, scuttling, scuttles
To scuttle is to move quickly with short steps, low to the ground. Scuttle away, a crab scuttling, scuttled off.
The movement is fast, low and slightly furtive, which is why it suits crabs, mice and people leaving a room they should not be in. There are two other scuttles: to scuttle a ship is to sink it deliberately by opening the hull, and a coal scuttle is the bucket by the fire — three separate words that happen to look alike.
1verbscuttleTo move quickly with short steps, low to the ground.
“A crab scuttled sideways across the sand and disappeared under a rock.”
2verbsinkTo sink a ship deliberately.
“Rather than let the enemy capture it, the crew scuttled their ship.”
scuttle is a scurrying, or a sinking.
The coal scuttle comes from Old English scutel, a dish, from Latin scutella. The verb meaning to scurry is a separate word of uncertain origin, probably related to scud.
Latin
scutella
Old English
scutel — dish, platter
Middle English
scuttel
English, today
scuttle
From Middle English scuttel, scutel, from Old English scutel (“dish, platter”), from Latin scutella, diminutive form of Latin scutra (“flat tray, dish”), perhaps related to Latin scutum (“shield”); compare Dutch schotel and German Schüssel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Ways of Moving