scull

Noun

scull (plural sculls)

1. A single oar mounted at the stern of a boat and moved from side to side to propel the boat forward.
2. One of a pair of oars handled by a single rower.
3. A small rowing boat, for one person.
4. A light rowing boat used for racing by one, two, or four rowers, each operating two oars (sculls), one in each hand.

Verb

scull (third-person singular simple present sculls, present participle sculling, simple past and past participle sculled)

1. To row a boat using a scull or sculls.
   • 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:

     The afternoon sun was getting low as the Rat sculled gently homewards in a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to himself, and not paying much attention to Mole.

2. To skate while keeping both feet in contact with the ground or ice.

Noun

scull (plural sculls)

1. Archaic spelling of skull.
   • 1801, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia‎, page 144:

     The sculls were so tender, that they generally fell to pieces on being touched. The other bones were stronger. There were some teeth which were judged to be smaller than those of an adult; a scull which on a slight view, appeared to be that of an infant, […]

2. A skull cap. A small bowl-shaped helmet, without visor or bever.
   • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 11:

     The scull is a head piece, without visor or bever, resembling a bowl or bason, such as was worn by our cavalry, within twenty or thirty years.

Verb

scull (third-person singular simple present sculls, present participle sculling, simple past and past participle sculled)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) To drink the entire contents of a drinking vessel without pausing.
   • 2005, Jane Egginton, Working and Living Australia, The Sunday Times, Cadogan Guides, UK, page 59,

     In 1954, Bob Hawke made the Guinness Book of Records for sculling 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds.

   • 2005, Stefan Laszczuk, The Goddamn Bus of Happiness, page 75:

     That way you get your opponent so gassed up from sculling beer that all he can think about is trying to burp without spewing.

   • 2006, Marc Llewellyn, Lee Mylne, Frommer′s Australia from $60 a Day, 14th edition, page 133:

     For a livelier scene, head here on Friday or Saturday night, when mass beer-sculling (chugging) and yodeling are accompanied by a brass band and costumed waitresses ferrying foaming beer steins about the atmospheric, cellarlike space.

   • 2010, Matt Warshaw, The History of Surfing, page 136:

     After a three-day Torquay-to-Sydney road trip with his hosts, Noll rejoined his American temmates, unshaven and stinking of alcohol, the Team USA badge ripped from his warm-up jacket and replaced by an Aussie-made patch of Disney character Gladstone Gander sculling a frothy mug of beer.

   • 2020, Becky Manawatu, Auē, page 181:

     I sipped it. It was thick and sweet and yuck. It went somewhere and did something I couldn't pinpoint. I sculled the rest.

Alternative forms

• skol

Synonyms

• chug, down

Noun

scull (plural sculls)

1. (obsolete) A shoal of fish.^[2]
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Of fish that with their fins and shining scales
     Glide under the green wave , in sculls

Noun

scull (plural sculls)

1. The skua gull.^[3]