Scupper

Quick meaning: Scupper is a noun meaning (nautical) A drainage hole on the deck of a ship.

Meaning

(nautical) A drainage hole on the deck of a ship.

More Meanings

1. (architecture) A similar opening in a wall or parapet that allows water to drain from a roof.
2. (transitive, UK) To thwart or destroy, especially something belonging or pertaining to another.

Example Sentences

The bad media coverage scuppered his chances of being elected.

["]The only chance was to get the guns and try a rescue. Of course they may scupper them at once in revenge.["]

This is the face of American exceptionalism[…] threatening to scupper both the court and, failing that, UN peace-keeping operations in Bosnia and anywhere else the US might have forces deployed on such work.

I have said that our roof was decidedly Biblical in style; but to make it a dry one, something of a nautical character was added to its architecture, for on either side were scuppers, and it was slightly arched in the centre[.]

Word Forms

• scuppers
• scuppering
• scuppered

Synonyms for scupper

Depending on context, synonyms include peril, queer, expose, lurk, ambuscade, ambush.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include bushwhack, ambuscade, waylay, ambush, expose, lurk.

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