scarper

Meaning

Verb

1. (UK, dated, slang, transitive) Chiefly in scarper the letty: to depart quickly or run away from (a place); to flee.
2. (UK, intransitive, slang) To depart quickly; to escape, to flee, to run away.

Noun

Chiefly in do a scarper: an act of departing quickly or running away; an escape, a flight.

Synonyms

escape

run away

break away

run

scat

turn tail

hightail it

lam

head for the hills

fly the coop

take to the woods

bunk

beat it

go

go around

make off

perish

push off

slink

vanish

waste

forfeit

blow

bolt

bugger off

clear out

decamp

deliquesce

disappear

dissolve

fade

fade away

flee

Translations

scappare

انزلق

سحب

دخل

ركض

سال

حكم

شغل

طبع

عبر

فر

فرّ

قاد

نشر

أدار

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈskɑː.pə/

Etymology

Cognate with Italian: scappare

Cognate with English: escape

In summary

The verb is probably borrowed from Italian scappare (“to run away, escape, flee”), from Vulgar Latin *excappāre (“to escape”), from Latin ex- (prefix meaning ‘away; out’) + cappa (“(Late Latin) cape, cloak (usually with a hood); (Medieval Latin) cap; headwear”) (further etymology uncertain, probably ultimately from caput (“head”), from dialectal Proto-Indo-European *káput (“head”)) + -āre (the present active infinitive of -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)). Around World War I (1914–1918), the English word was influenced by the Cockney rhyming slang term Scapa Flow (“to go”). Doublet of escape and scape.
The noun is derived from the verb.