Definition of "scatter"

scatter

/ˈskætə/

verb
third-person singular simple present scatters, present participle scattering, simple past and past participle scattered
1. (ergative) To (cause to) separate and go in different directions; to disperse.
  Quotations
  Scatter and disperse the giddy Goths.
  c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene ii]
2. (transitive) To distribute loosely as by sprinkling.
  Quotations
  Why should my muse enlarge on Libyan swains, / Their scattered cottages, and ample plains?
  1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
3. (transitive, physics) To deflect (radiation or particles).
  Quotations
  Chasca's ring is unique. It appears to be, for lack of a better term, a massive piece of alien "installation art." The rings are made of small pieces of synthetic material, and are almost invisible from space. From the ground, they catch and scatter the light of Matano in picturesque ways. It is not known who created the ring or when.
  2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, PC, scene: Chasca planetary description
4. (intransitive) To occur or fall at widely spaced intervals.
5. (transitive) To frustrate, disappoint, and overthrow.
6. (transitive) To be dispersed upon.
  Quotations
  […] its beauty is obscured by the environmental waste and loose trash that scatter the countryside.
  2016, J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, page 21
7. (transitive, baseball) Of a pitcher: to keep down the number of hits or walks.
noun
countable and uncountable, plural scatters
1. The act of scattering or dispersing.
2. A collection of dispersed objects.
  Quotations
  The Los Angeles Basin evolved as a mobility surface principally through the combination of an initial system of electric railways connecting a scatter of agricultural settlement settlements.
  2006, Theano S. Terkenli, Anne-Marie d'Hauteserre, Landscapes of a New Cultural Economy of Space, Springer Science & Business Media, page 84
  The plot of all our sea-level index points shows a scatter of data points that do not overlap […]
  2015, Ian Shennan, Antony J. Long, Benjamin P. Horton, Handbook of Sea-Level Research, John Wiley & Sons, page 19

Definition of "scatter"

scatter

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations

noun

Quotations