Botany. a leafless peduncle rising from the ground.
Zoology. a stemlike part, as the shaft of a feather.
Architecture. the shaft of a column.
Entomology. the stemlike basal segment of the antenna of certain insects.
a leafless stalk in plants that arises from a rosette of leaves and bears one or more flowers
zoology a stalklike part, such as the first segment of an insect's antenna
1595–1605; < Latin scāpus stalk < Doric Greek skâpos, akin to Attic skêptron staff, scepter
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Use every man after his desert,” Shakespeare’s Hamlet says in a generous, uplifting mood, “and who should ’scape whipping?”
From Washington Post • Aug. 16, 2017
But there’s a line from Hamlet that comes to mind whenever people talk about awards in terms of what “deserved” to win: “Use every man after his desert, and who shall ’scape whipping?”
From Slate • Mar. 6, 2014
As with all the best ’scape artists, just when we think we’re looking at places or things that we think we know, the artist makes us blink — and our eyes are shocked wide awake.
From New York Times • Mar. 8, 2012
How wilt thou 'scape that dreadful Precipice, On which thou art hurried on by thy fatal Passion?
From The Perjur'd Husband by Centlivre, Susanna
Fortunately, neither was armed—except with the weapons which nature had provided—and a short game of “fisticuffs”—in which Casey had decidedly the advantage—served as a ’scape valve for the ebullition of their anger.
From The Guerilla Chief And other Tales by Reid, Mayne
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
