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say it: skahch
scotch is a noun, verb and adjective meaning "a slight surface cut (especially a notch that is made to keep a tally)". It carries 6 recorded senses.
whiskey distilled in Scotland; especially whiskey made from malted barley in a pot still
make a small cut or score into
of or relating to or characteristic of Scotland or its people or culture or its English dialect or Gaelic language
“Scots Gaelic”
“the Scots community in New York”
“`Scottish' tends to be the more formal term as in `The Scottish Symphony' or `Scottish authors' or `Scottish mountains'”
“`Scotch' is in disfavor with Scottish people and is used primarily outside Scotland except in such frozen phrases as `Scotch broth' or `Scotch whiskey' or `Scotch plaid'”
avoiding waste
“an economical meal”
“an economical shopper”
“a frugal farmer”
“a frugal lunch”
“a sparing father and a spending son”
“sparing in their use of heat and light”
“stinting in bestowing gifts”
“thrifty because they remember the great Depression”
“`scotch' is used only informally”
colloquialism
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for scotch come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.