SCARAMOUCH (-E)

PRONUNCIATION: (SKAR/SKER-uh-moosh/mooch/mouch)

MEANING: noun: A boastful coward, buffoon, or rascal.

ETYMOLOGY: After Scaramouche, a stock character in commedia dell’arte (Italian comic theater popular from the 16th to 18th centuries). His Italian name was Scaramuccia (literally, skirmish) -- he was often getting beaten up by Harlequin. The word is ultimately from the Indo-European root sker- (to cut), which also gave us skirmish, skirt, curt, screw, shard, shears, carnage, carnivorous, carnation, sharp, scrape, scrobiculate (having many small grooves), incarnadine (flesh-colored), and acarophobia (fear of small insects; delusion that one’s skin is infested with bugs). Earliest documented use: 1662.
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SCARAMOUTH - souvenier of duelling (see also SCARABOUCHE)

SCARYMOUCHE - monster housefly

SCARAB-OUCH - beetle-bites sting!