hopscotch

1. uncountableplayground gamesA child's game, in which a player, hopping on one foot, drives a stone from one compartment to another of a figure traced or scotched on the ground.

   No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgotten pickeystone.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 5]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

   Synonyms: hopper, peevers

present singular third person hopscotches · participle present hopscotching · participle past hopscotched · past hopscotched

1. figurativelyintransitiveTo move by hopping.

   As he hopscotched around the world on his Gulfstream IV — he got rid of his homes but kept his private plane — he found himself spending more and more time in Los Angeles, and he also rediscovered his interest in politics and philosophy.

   2022 April 6, Michael Steinberger, “How the ‘Homeless Billionaire’ Became a Philosopher King”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

2. figurativelyintransitiveTo move back and forth between adjacent patterns by or as if by hopping.

   Although the events described hop-scotch back and forth in time, the story moves along in an orderly fasion ^([sic]) and is rarely rambling.

   1979 April 28, Pat M. Kuras, “Connecting With Women”, in Gay Community News, page 15