What does the phrase mean?
“Could you scooch over a drop?”
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Your quote is out of context, but I suppose this is the slang idiom (in the character’s dialect again) for move over a little bit. Perhaps the speaker wants room to sit down?
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That’s probably correct since Sid, the character in the movie was outside when he said that phrase to Manfred who was sleeping inside the house he made out of twigs and branches.
But what is the original meaning of the verb ‘scooch’? I have not found it in my dictionary.
Thanks.
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I would guess it is a free variation of
Scrooch (also scrootch) (vi.):
To hunch down; crouch: “the hot kind of hot Indiana hot weather that sends the family dog scrooching under the pickup truck to enjoy the shade” (John Skow).
ETYMOLOGY: Alteration (perhaps influenced by crouch) of scrooge, scrouge, to squeeze, crowd.
or
[b]Scrunch /b: 1. To crush or crunch. 2. To crumple or squeeze; hunch: scrunched up their shoulders; scrunch one’s nose against a window.
(vi): 1. To hunch: “The men scrunched closer” (Susan Dworski). 2. To move with or make a crunching sound: scrunching along the gravel path.
ETYMOLOGY: Probably alteration of crunch.
In English, we play with this sort of onomatopoetic word quite freely in casual conversation, producing multiple forms, as you can see here:
scooch
scrunch
crunch
hunch
crush
crumple
scrooch
scrootch
crouch
squish
squinch (qv)
etc.
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Thanks, Mister Micawber.
One last question:
If I’m not mistaken, the last two words in the sentence:
Could you scooch over a drop?
means ‘a little’.
Can I use it to modify the verb ‘move’, say for example,
‘Could you move over a drop?’ ?
The variant ‘scoot over’ is also used:
Scooch is slang that is not widely used, it is simply a play on the word ‘scoot’, I think-- which is exactly what it means, to scoot or slide. It isn’t listed in my dictionary, but it is listed in the thesaurus as a synonym for slide.
It sounds like something a British person would say. I don’t mean that in a negative sense at all. But it just does.