scamper

[skam-per] /ˈskæm pər/

verb (used without object)

to run or go hastily or quickly.

to run playfully about, as a child.

noun

a scampering; a quick run.

Origin

1680-90; obsolete scamp to go (see scamp) + -er⁶

Examples from the web for scamper

The implication seems to be that if you drop a lobster in boiling water, it will pull itself out and scamper out of the room.
Perhaps the foolish scamper was some sort of friendly signal that he ought to have understood.
Next they began to neigh, to curvet, to scamper on all sides over the plain.
Thousands of rats dine with people and scamper over their feet.
They can leap from tree to tree, and they scamper nimbly among the leaves.
Multiple predators, including crabs and flocks of gulls, voraciously prey on hatchlings during this short scamper.
If you lost, you'd scamper home through the back streets.
School is out for a week's holiday so kids of various ages scamper up and down the short, dusty streets.
The primary campaign has seen him scamper back to the hinterland of his party.
Half the size of a shoebox, it can scamper at a rate of five times its own body-length per second.

British Dictionary definitions for scamper

scamper

/ˈskæmpə/

verb (intransitive)

to run about playfully

(often foll by through) to hurry quickly through (a place, task, book, etc)

noun

the act of scampering

Derived Forms

scamperer, noun

Word Origin

C17: probably from scamp (vb); see scamp1

Word Origin and History for scamper

"to run quickly," 1680s, probably from Flemish schampeeren, frequentative of schampen "run away," from Old North French escamper (Old French eschamper) "to run away, flee, quit the battlefield, escape," from Vulgar Latin *excampare "decamp," literally "leave the field," from Latin ex campo, from ex "out of" (see ex-) + campo, ablative of campus "field" (see campus). A vogue word late 17c. Related: Scampered; scampering. The noun is 1680s, from the verb.