scot
noun
a payment or charge.
scot
1 American
[skot]
/ skɒt /
noun
History/Historical.
-
a payment or charge.
-
one's share of a payment or charge.
-
an assessment or tax.
Scot
2
American
[skot]
/ skɒt /
noun
-
Scots
plural
-
a native or inhabitant of Scotland.
-
one of an ancient Gaelic people who came from northern Ireland about the 6th century a.d. and settled in the northwestern part of Great Britain, and after whom Scotland was named.
Scot.
4
American
abbreviation
-
Scotch.
-
Scotland.
-
Scottish.
Scot.
1
British
abbreviation
-
Scotch (whisky)
-
Scotland
-
Scottish
Scot
2
British
/ skɒt /
noun
-
a native or inhabitant of Scotland
-
a member of a tribe of Celtic raiders from the north of Ireland who carried out periodic attacks against the British mainland coast from the 3rd century ad , eventually settling in N Britain during the 5th and 6th centuries
scot
Idioms
Commonly Confused
See Scotch.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of scot1
1200–50; Middle English < Old Norse skattr tax, treasure; cognate with Old English gescot payment
Origin of Scot2
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English Scottas (plural), from Late Latin Scottī “the Irish”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
ULA’s design means large losses may be heavily taxed while big gains go scot free.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2025
On this basis, prosecutors declined to try the case and the McMichaels appeared to go scot free.
From Slate ● May 19, 2020
State Department spokesperson Marie Harf answered in the negative when asked if Ms Khobragade would go "scot free" and the US courts would be asked to drop the charges against her.
From BBC ● Dec. 20, 2013
So either the wrongdoers got off scot free, or the SEC shouldn’t have brought the case it did against the company.
From BusinessWeek ● Feb. 10, 2011
And the big yeller dog that had caused all the trouble got off scot free.
From "Old Yeller" by Fred Gipson
Enter James Law, a Scot who had been recruited in 1868 by Ezra Cornell, the co-founder of the eponymous university, to join the faculty as a professor of veterinary medicine.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026
The name of a Scot who died in the Holocaust after refusing to abandon Jewish children in her care has been added to a special memorial wall at Auschwitz.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
“The entirety of our focus is to get to this transaction and get through it,” LIV chief executive Scot O’Neil said last week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
"There's no time for that. Glasgow on the weekend, mate, it's bouncing," the Scot said with a slight croak in his voice.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2026
It wasn’t until 1828 that an enterprising Scot named James Neilson had the simple but effective idea of injecting heated air rather than cold air into an iron furnace by means of a bellows.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
"I'm married to a Bengali Scot. My son is going out with a Kurdish refugee."
From BBC ● May 31, 2016
Chardy converts with a superb point, pulling Murray all over the court before nailing a cross-court forehand past the Scot. 1-1 in the first, two breaks already.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 1, 2015
Wodrow's Hist. of the Suff. of the Church of Scot., vol. iii, pp.
From The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning by Hugh Binning
From bec-jaune we have archaic Scot. beejam, university freshman.
From The Romance of Words (4th ed.) by Ernest Weekley
E. brangled confused, entangled, Scot. brangle to shake, menace; probably a variant of wrangle, confused with brawl.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Noah Webster
Long lost oyster beds on the West Coast of Scotland have been rediscovered thanks to Gaelic and Scots language.
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
For his advocacy of English prose in the sweet and easy styles of Joseph Addison and Jonathan Swift, the Scots bookworm has been heralded as “a founder of the study of English in universities.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
The Scots thinker did not invent many of the economic concepts in his most influential book.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
Scots Active say they patrol the streets to protect women and girls from sexual predators.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
Most of the Scots were Protestants who embraced Calvin’s ideology.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
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.
