scum

Pluralscums

Formsscums, scumming, scummed

1. 1
   worthless personnounslangderogatorycountable or uncountable

   A person, or people as a group, regarded as morally contemptible and worthless.

   Anyone who steals from a children's charity is scum.

   The detective swore he would get that scum off the streets for good.

   Similarbastard, asshole

   Note

   The insult treats a person as the worthless layer to be skimmed off and thrown away. It usually goes without an article or a plural, even for one person (he is scum, you scum), and it is harsh, derogatory slang, at home in anger and out of place in polite talk. Bastard is its near synonym.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The film of impurities that rises and gathers on the surface of a liquid, particularly water or molten metal.

   Workers skim the scum from the molten bronze before pouring it into the molds.

   Skim off any scum that rises to the top while the broth simmers.

   Similardross, impurities, slag

   Note

   The word began as foam: Middle English took it from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch schūme, and Proto-Germanic *skūmaz meant "froth, foam," from a root meaning "to cover, conceal." It is uncountable, the scum on a pot or a vat, and in metalworking it stands beside dross and slag as a name for what rises from the melt and is skimmed away.

3. 3
   green slimenoununcountable

   Algae or other greenish water plants, usually seen as a floating layer on ponds.

   Thick green scum spread across the pond during the long, hot summer.

   Frogs hid beneath the scum that coated the edges of the old millpond.

   Similaralgae, slime

4. 4
   form a layerverbintransitive

   To become covered with a layer of scum.

   If you leave the rain barrel uncovered, the water will scum over by midsummer.

   The neglected fish tank had scummed over within a week.

   Note

   The verb takes no object and usually brings over with it: a liquid scums over, as Elizabeth Raffald's pickling cucumbers will in The Experienced English House-keeper (1769) unless they are stirred at least twice a day. Like ice over or cloud over, the particle marks a surface closing up.

5. 5
   skimverbtransitive

   To remove the layer of scum from a liquid or similar substance.

   The cook scummed the stock every few minutes as it came to a boil.

   Scum the syrup carefully, or the candy will turn out cloudy.

   Similarskim

6. 6
   sewage layernouncountable or uncountable

   In a septic tank or cesspool, the uppermost layer, made up of grease, oils, and other light matter that floats on the liquid.

   The inspector measured how thick the scum had become inside the septic tank.

   If the scum in the tank reaches the outlet pipe, it can clog the drain field.

7. 7
   spermnounslangUSuncountable

   Semen; the fluid that carries sperm.

   Horse, who was always talking about facts, said, “Man, that can't be scum, ’cause scum is white.”

   1965, Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land

   Similarsperm, seed, ejaculate, cum, spunk

   Note

   Slang borrows the word for surface filth and turns it on the body, so the term sounds coarse whatever the speaker intends. It is chiefly American and uncountable, never scums, and Claude Brown uses it in Manchild in the Promised Land (1965). In any neutral, polite or medical setting, semen is the word to use.

8. 8
   video gamesverbcolloquialtransitive

   To startscum or savescum: to restart a game, or reload a saved one, repeatedly until chance gives a result one wants.

   I scummed the opening for an hour until I got a decent starting weapon.

   Some players scum every boss fight, reloading after each bad hit.

   Note

   Players' shorthand clips startscum and savescum down to their last syllable, so one verb covers both tricks. It takes the replayed stretch as its object (scum the opening, scum a boss fight) or for and the prize hoped for, as in scumming for a rare item. It is informal gamer talk, not a word for general writing.

9. 9
   skimverbtransitive

   To remove something from the surface of a liquid as scum.

   The smith scummed the dross from the molten iron before casting.

   Scum the fat off the gravy before you serve it.

   Similarskim

   Note

   Here the object is what comes off, not the liquid it comes off: the workers in Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590) "scumd the drosse, that from the metall came." Compare the skimming verb, whose object is the pot, the stock or the syrup itself.

Showing meanings only. Show all 11