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Splay vs Scatter - What's the difference?

splay | scatter |

As verbs the difference between splay and scatter

is that splay is to display; to spread while scatter is (ergative) to (cause to) separate and go in different directions; to disperse.

As an adjective splay

is displayed; spread out; turned outward; hence, flat; ungainly; as, splay shoulders.

As a noun splay

is a slope or bevel, especially of the sides of a door or window, by which the opening is made larger at one face of the wall than at the other, or larger at each of the faces than it is between them.

splay

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To display; to spread.
  • * Gascoigne
  • our ensigns splayed
  • To dislocate, as a shoulder bone.
  • (obsolete, UK, dialect) To spay; to castrate.
  • To turn on one side; to render oblique; to slope or slant, as the side of a door, window, etc.
  • To rearrange (a splay tree) so that a desired element is placed at the root.
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Displayed; spread out; turned outward; hence, flat; ungainly; as, splay shoulders.
  • * M. Arnold
  • Something splay , something blunt-edged, unhandy, and infelicitous.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A slope or bevel, especially of the sides of a door or window, by which the opening is made larger at one face of the wall than at the other, or larger at each of the faces than it is between them.
  • Anagrams

    * *

    scatter

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (ergative) To (cause to) separate and go in different directions; to disperse.
  • the police scattered the crowds
    the crowd scattered
  • * Shakespeare
  • Scatter and disperse the giddy Goths.
  • To distribute loosely as by sprinkling.
  • Her ashes were scattered at the top of a waterfall.
  • * Dryden
  • Why should my muse enlarge on Libyan swains, / Their scattered cottages, and ample plains?
  • (physics) To deflect (radiation or particles).
  • To occur or fall at widely spaced intervals.
  • To frustrate, disappoint, and overthrow.
  • to scatter hopes or plans

    Derived terms

    * scatterbrain * scatterplot * scattershot