scooch

• scootch
• skooch
• skootch

A variation of scouch. The first sense is probably influenced by scoot.

• Rhymes: -uːtʃ

scooch (third-person singular simple present scooches, present participle scooching, simple past and past participle scooched)

1. (US) To shift, move aside, or scoot over.
   • 1992, Kevin Henkes, Words of Stone

     "We could watch it all night," Joselle would add, scooching closer to her mother. "If it was on all night."

   • 1998, George Ostrom, Shannon Ostrom, Nature

     Lying on your side, start rocking back and forth, scooching to and fro and kicking.

   • 2002, Andrew Clements, A Week in the Woods

     Turning over onto his back, he scooched down farther into his bag. It was the kind of sleeping bag with a hood built into it, so he pulled on the drawstring...

2. To crouch.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ […].” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.

• chocos, hoccos