scufter

plural scufters

1. UKdatedslangNorth CountryA policeman.

   Nothing like being dead for putting the scufters off the scent.

   1947, Robert Briffault, New Life of Mr. Martin, page 56

present singular third person scufters · participle present scuftering · participle past scuftered · past scuftered

1. dialectalTo bustle, to hurry.

   […] scuftered off an' lowpt t'dyke afooar Ah cud brittle him wid me gibby-stick.

   1963, John William Robertson Scott, The Countryman: A Quarterly Review and Miscellany, page 182

   2 more examples

   Scarcely had the boy undressed himself and lain down on his pillow, ere his two brothers, having heard tidings of the fight, came scuftering in hot haste into the room in their night dresses, all aglow with curiosity[…]

   1874, George Coward (of Carlisle), The songs and ballads of Cumberland, to which are added dialect and other poems, with notes, ed. by Sidney Gilpin, page 116

   On working-days she went in a short linsey skirt with a loose print bedgown; an old straw hat would be tied over her ears by a rusty black ribbon, and about her waist would hang the packages committed to her charge. But in honour of the evenings celebration, to enjoy which she had spared her willing with the rest, she had clothed herself in garments which had been her "best things" when a girl. "Eh! Aw hev scuftered," said she, glancing at the two women with a pair of keen black eyes set in a frame of tiny puckers. "Titter oop t' sprunt sud ower a bit. Aw'm a' of a swelter wi' runnin'." "Yon's no cloak o' thine, Susannah[…]"

   1900, Emma Brooke, The Engrafted Rose: A Novel, page 100