- scud (v.)
- "to move quickly," 1530s, perhaps a variant of Middle English scut "rabbit, rabbit's tail," in reference to its movements, perhaps from Old Norse skjota "to throw, shoot" (cf. Norwegian skudda "to shove, push"), but there are phonetic difficulties. Perhaps rather from a North Sea Germanic source akin to Middle Low German, Middle Dutch schudden "to shake." The type of ballistic missile is the NATO reporting name for a type of Soviet missile introduced in the 1960s.