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Bysshe, Bysshe, Bysshe! What are we going to do about you? I hope you'll pardon this mesonoxian and inaniloquent lamprophony from a nihilarian pronk; it is not so much a phenakist scopperloit as it is a finnimbrun, an infinite floccinaucinihilipilification (The Guardian)

I found it, as comment, in The Guardian. After a lot of efforts to decipher its meaning, I encountered some hard trouble problem in searching for "scopperloit."

In Google "define scopperloit" does not produce serious hits.

Can anybody explain the meaning of "scopperloit"?

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  • drbilllong.com/2008Words/WeirdIII.html Not sure if this is general reference since it is such an obscure, obsolete word.
    – Zairja
    Commented Aug 30, 2012 at 14:17
  • 4
    Aren’t you going to also ask us about the equally mysterious mesonoxian, inaniloquent, lamprophony, nihilarian, phenakist, finnimbrun, and floccinaucinihilipilification, too? Or shall we expect those as separate forthcoming questions?
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Aug 30, 2012 at 14:43
  • Why the heck is "nihilarian" there when we already have "nihilist" ?? Even "nihilistic" is not needed, still it's kept like hoarder's garbage. Too much irregularity and unusualness which makes this language really weird, making us vigilant about that these kinda words aren't mysterious, they're simply unrequired "weed" stuff that must be discarded before it creates confusion & self-doubts in it's users. What happens when you collect & ultimately fill your house with numerous same/similar things ? You must stay out to keep them in. That's what's been happening to English since so long now.
    – Vicky Dev
    Commented Jul 7, 2023 at 19:43

2 Answers 2

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Yes, it’s a “real word”, whatever that is supposed to mean. The OED says it is dialectal, rather than obsolete. Per the OED, scopperloit is play that is romping, rude, indelicate in nature. It seems to correspond to words like horseplay or roughhousing in contemporary English.

ˈscopperloit. dial.

Also 7 skoppoloit, -lot.

Etymology: Of obscure origin: cf. scobberlotcher and scoterlope v.

(See quots.)

  • 1691 Ray S. & E.C. Wds. 111 ― A Scopperloit, a time of idleness, a play-time.
  • 1787 in Grose Prov. Gloss.
  • 1878 S. H. Miller & Skertchly Fenland iv. 131 ― Skoppolot, Skoppoloit, romping, rude, indelicate play.
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  • +1 I couldn't find any evidence for the rough-play definition. (Note to self: get a dead-tree OED.)
    – coleopterist
    Commented Aug 30, 2012 at 14:32
  • @JLG No, fixed.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Aug 30, 2012 at 15:33
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I couldn't find a definition for this obsolete word in any online dictionary. However, a li'l digging unearthed the following references in a couple of esoteric catalogues:

From The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang (1973):

... the North Country and East Anglian scopperloit, soppoloit, a time of idleness or of play ...

From An Universal Etymological Dictionary (1759):

A Scopperloit, a Time of Idleness, a Play-Time.

It also finds mention in an investigation of the word scobberlotcher:

The Oxford English Dictionary points, tentatively, to two old words as possible antecedents. One is the eastern English regional scopperloit, a time of idleness (perhaps from Dutch leuteren, to idle, the source of English loiter).

A few hits on Google such as this one go a step further by claiming that scopperloit can also mean "rude and rough-housing play". I couldn't find any sources to corroborate this nuance. (Edit: tchrist's answer confirms that the OED includes this additional definition.)

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