Scuttle vs Fail - What's the difference?
scuttle | fail |
A container like an open bucket (usually to hold and carry coal).
(construction) A hatch that provides access to the roof from the interior of a building.
A broad, shallow basket.
A small hatch or opening in a boat. Also, small opening in a boat or ship for draining water from open deck.
* {{quote-book, year=1928, author=Lawrence R. Bourne
, title=Well Tackled!
, chapter=7 (nautical) To cut a hole or holes through the bottom, deck, or sides of (as of a ship), for any purpose.
To deliberately sink one's ship or boat by any means, usually by order of the vessel's commander or owner.
* 2002 , Richard Côté, Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy , Corinthian Books (2002), ISBN 9781929175314,
* 2003 , Richard Norton Smith, The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880-1955 , Northwestern University Press (2003), ISBN 0810120399,
* 2007 , Michael Mueller, Canaris: The Life and Death of Hitler's Spymaster , Naval Institute Press (2007), ISBN 9781591141013,
* 2009 , Nancy Toppino, Insiders' Guide to the Florida Keys and Key West , Insiders' Guide (2009), ISBN 9780762748716,
(transitive, by extension, in figurative use) Undermine or thwart oneself (sometimes intentionally), or denigrate or destroy one's position or property; compare scupper.
To move hastily, to scurry
* Sir Walter Scott
* 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 3
* 1913 ,
(label) To be unsuccessful.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (label) Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)
(label) To neglect.
To cease to operate correctly.
(label) To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert.
* Bible, 1 Kings ii. 4
* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 3, ch. II, ''Gospel of Mammonism
*
, title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 (label) To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.
(label) To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.
To miss attaining; to lose.
* Milton
To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.
* Bible, Job xiv. 11
* Shakespeare
(archaic) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of .
* Berke
(archaic) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
* Milton
(archaic) To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.
(obsolete) To perish; to die; used of a person.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
* Milton
To become unable to meet one's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent.
(uncountable) (label) Poor quality; substandard workmanship.
(label) A failure (condition of being unsuccessful)
A failure (something incapable of success)
A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action).
A failing grade in an academic examination.
As nouns the difference between scuttle and fail
is that scuttle is a container like an open bucket (usually to hold and carry coal) or scuttle can be a small hatch or opening in a boat also, small opening in a boat or ship for draining water from open deck or scuttle can be a quick pace; a short run while fail is .As a verb scuttle
is (nautical) to cut a hole or holes through the bottom, deck, or sides of (as of a ship), for any purpose or scuttle can be to move hastily, to scurry.scuttle
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)Etymology 2
From (etyl) ( > (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)citation, passage=The detective kept them in view. He made his way casually along the inside of the shelter until he reached an open scuttle close to where the two men were standing talking. Eavesdropping was not a thing Larard would have practised from choice, but there were times when, in the public interest, he had to do it, and this was one of them.}}
Verb
page 325:
- In this version, the Patriot was boarded by pirates (or the crew and passengers were overpowered by mutineers), who murdered everyone and then looted and scuttled the ship.
page 238:
- To lay the foundation for an all-weather dock at Shelter Bay, he filled an old barge with worn-out grindstones from the Thorold paper mill, then scuttled the vessel.
page 17:
- He decided that before scuttling the ship to prevent her falling into enemy hands he had to get the dead and wounded ashore.
page 227:
- In recent years, steel-hull vessels up to 350 feet long have been scuttled in stable sandy-bottom areas, amassing new communities of fish and invertebrates and easing the stress and strain on the coral reef by creating new fishing and diving sites.
- The candidate had scuttled his chances with his unhinged outburst.
Etymology 3
See scuddle.Verb
- With the first dawn of day, old Janet was scuttling about the house to wake the baron.
- there was a wisp or two of fine seaweed that had somehow got in, and a small crab was still alive and scuttled across the corner, yet the coffins were but little disturbed.
- Morel scuttled out of the house before his wife came down.
Usage notes
The word "scuttle" carries a crab-like connotation, and is mainly used to describe panic-like movements of the legs, akin to crabs' leg movements.References
Anagrams
* English terms with multiple etymologiesfail
English
Verb
(en verb)A new prescription, passage=As the world’s drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.}}
- There shall not fail thee a man on the throne.
- A poor Irish Widow […] went forth with her three children, bare of all resource, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none; — till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever […]
citation, passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence.}}
- though that seat of earthly bliss be failed
- The crops failed last year.
- as the waters fail from the sea
- Till Lionel's issue fails , his should not reign.
- If ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not be attributed to their size.
- When earnestly they seek / Such proof, conclude they then begin to fail .
- A sick man fails .
- had the king in his last sickness failed
- Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps / Shall grieve him, if I fail not.
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb which takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* (to be unsuccessful) fall on one's faceAntonyms
* (to be unsuccessful) succeedDerived terms
* failure * fail-safeNoun
- The project was full of fail .