SCUM • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Scum

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/skəm/ Listen

noun

Scum n.

The extraneous matter or impurities which rise to the surface of liquids in boiling or fermentation, or which form on the surface by other means; also, the scoria of metals in a molten state; dross. "Some to remove the scum as it did rise."

Refuse; recrement; anything vile or worthless. "The great and innocent are insulted by the scum and refuse of the people."

verb

Scum v. t. (past & past part. scummed; pres. part. scumming)

To take the scum from; to clear off the impure matter from the surface of; to skim. "You that scum the molten lead."

To sweep or range over the surface of. (Obs.) "Wandering up and down without certain seat, they lived by scumming those seas and shores as pirates."

Scum v. i. To form a scum; to become covered with scum. Also used figuratively. "Life, and the interest of life, have stagnated and scummed over."

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Etymology of 'Scum'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Scum" Quotes from Famous Books

... came his two men in a queer snakelike procession of plopping buoys and wriggling bodies. Ahead of them the seaweed stretched, apparently all the way to the schooner. As they worked their way through the scum of many seas, the noon sun broiled their backs into thin water blisters, and stewed saline odors out of the clammy ...

— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... "go to your homes while ye may. Ignorant, and greatly daring that ye are, the bandar-log, or such thievish scum among ye, drive ye with idle words and chatterings even to the brink of death. So far have ye come, but ...

— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... who are here today are gone to-morrow, and their places in society filled up by others who ten years back had no prospect of ever being admitted. All is transition, the waves follow one another to the far west, the froth and scum, boiling ...

— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... moon as white and thin As an abalone shell hung under the boughs Of an oak, that is mocked by the vastness of sky between His boughs and the moon in this sky of afternoon. ... We walk to the water's edge and here he shows me Green scum, or stalks, or sedges, grasses, shrubs, That yield to trees beyond the levels, where The beech and oak have triumph; for along This gradual growth from algae, reeds and grasses, That builds the soil against ...

— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... fact that presaged poor luck for our hunting—and the washes and stream-beds were bleached white. We came to two water-holes, tanks the Arizonians called them, and they were vile mud-holes with green scum on the water. The horses drank, but I would have had to be far gone from thirst before I would have slaked mine there. We faced west with the hot sun beating on us and the dust rising in clouds. No wonder that ...

— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

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