scupper

noun scup·per \ ˈskə-pər \

Definition of scupper

1 :an opening cut through the bulwarks of a ship so that water falling on deck may flow overboard

2 :an opening in the wall of a building through which water can drain from a floor or flat roof

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Recent Examples of scupper from the Web

Stoke look set to scupper Fiorentina's pursuit of PSG forward Jese Rodriguez, according to reports in the Stoke Sentinel.

— SI.com, "Stoke City Favourites Ahead of Fiorentina in Chase for PSG Forward Jese Rodriguez," 13 Aug. 2017
The towering Dupont Circle fountain is tilting, its huge top basin inching off-kilter and slowly spoiling the flow from its three scuppers.

— steve hendrix, Washington Post, "Where’s the water? In the nation’s capital, dry fountains mar the landscape.," 9 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'scupper.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of scupper

Middle English skopper- (in compounds), perhaps from Anglo-French *escopoir, from escopir to spit out

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 15th century

See Words from the same year

scupper

verb

Definition of scupper

transitive verb

British

:to defeat or put an end to :do in 1a

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Examples of scupper in a Sentence

The latest information could scupper the peace talks.

Recent Examples of scupper from the Web

This state of affairs has turned off some foreign investors and scuppered plans to turn the country into Africa's Silicon Valley.

— tara john, Time, "Rwanda's Paul Kagame Set for Third Term as Both Despot and Do-Gooder," 4 Aug. 2017
The Everton contract rebel has been touted with moving to the capital this summer as interest from Spurs supposedly gathers pace, but any deal to take him to north London has already been scuppered by the Toffees' alleged £50m asking price.

— SI.com, "Spurs Left Reeling Over Everton Contract Rebel's £150k-a-Week Wage Demands," 16 July 2017
Turkey has reached the point of an agreement on a missile defense system before, only to scupper the deal later amid protests and condemnation from NATO.

— selcan hacaoglu, Bloomberg.com, "Turkey Chooses Russia Over NATO for Missile Defense," 13 July 2017
While Democrats fumed at the revelations, exasperated Republicans in Congress worried Trump's repeated scandals and gaffes could scupper their legislative agenda.

— chicagotribune.com, "Will U.S. intelligence partners trust Trump anymore?," 16 May 2017
Last year, a single province of Belgium nearly scuppered a trade deal negotiated between all of Europe and Canada in seeking favor for its dairy farmers.

— peter s. goodman, New York Times, "Beginning ‘Brexit’ and Bracing for Impact," 30 Mar. 2017
One more vote would have scuppered DeVos’s nomination, and in the days running up to the final decision voters lobbied their senators with phone calls, letters, e-mails, and Twitter pleas.

— rebecca mead, The New Yorker, "The Betsy DeVos Confirmation Debacle," 7 Feb. 2017

scupper Has Military Origins

All efforts to figure out where this verb came from have been defeated, including attempts to connect it to the noun scupper, a 500-year-old word for a drain opening in the side of a ship. (One conjecture, that the blood of shipboard battle was "scuppered" when it was washed down the scuppers, unfortunately lacks backing in the form of any actual evidence of the verb used this way.) All we know for sure is that scupper meant "to ambush and massacre" in 19th-century military slang. Then, just before the century turned, it found its place in a magazine story in the sense of simply "doing (someone) in." The more common modern application to things rather than people being done in or defeated didn't appear until a couple of decades into the 20th century.