scute

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English

Detail of an alligator foot, showing scutes

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin scutum (shield). Compare scutum, escudo, scudo, and écu.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /skjuːt/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -uːt

Noun

scute (plural scutes)

  1. (zoology) A horny, chitinous, or bony external plate or scale, as on the shell of a turtle or the skin of crocodiles.
    • 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 71:
      Then one afternoon, as he's stripping the scutes and hide from a shortnose sturgeon, an idea hits him.
  2. (genetics) A proneural gene, often associated with achaete, that is required for the formation of many larval and adult sense organs
  3. (obsolete) A small shield.
    • a. 1530 (date written), John Skelton, “Here after Foloweth a Lytell Boke, whiche hath to Name Why Come Ye Nat to Courte? ”, in Alexander Dyce, editor, The Poetical Works of John Skelton: , volume II, London: Thomas Rodd, , published 1843, →OCLC, page 32:
      But yet they ouer shote vs
      Wyth crownes and wyth scutus;
      With scutis and crownes of gold
      I drede we are bought and solde;
  4. (historical) An old French gold coin.

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