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scamper

[skam-per]
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verb (used without object)
  1. to run or go hastily or quickly.
  2. to run playfully about, as a child.
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noun
  1. a scampering; a quick run.
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Origin of scamper

1680–90; obsolete scamp to go (see scamp) + -er6
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for scamper

Historical Examples

  • Let it but scamper across the corner, and at once it is discovered.

    The Meaning of Evolution

    Samuel Christian Schmucker

  • Bannock barked for joy also, and struggled up to scamper back to his master.

    The Fiery Totem

    Argyll Saxby

  • How Miss Bella Curtis did scamper for her two cents to pay the postman!

    The Little Nightcap Letters.

    Frances Elizabeth Barrow

  • Either we will gloriously take them, or they will limber up and scamper after Jackson.

    The Long Roll

    Mary Johnston

  • Just as we were undress'd and going to bed, the Gentlemen arrived, and we had to scamper.

British Dictionary definitions for scamper

scamper

verb (intr)
  1. to run about playfully
  2. (often foll by through) to hurry quickly through (a place, task, book, etc)
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noun
  1. the act of scampering
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Derived Formsscamperer, noun

Word Origin

C17: probably from scamp (vb); see scamp 1
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for scamper

v.

"to run quickly," 1680s, probably from Flemish schampeeren, frequentative of schampen "run away," from Old North French escamper (Old French eschamper) "to run away, flee, quit the battlefield, escape," from Vulgar Latin *excampare "decamp," literally "leave the field," from Latin ex campo, from ex "out of" (see ex-) + campo, ablative of campus "field" (see campus). A vogue word late 17c. Related: Scampered; scampering. The noun is 1680s, from the verb.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper