hopscotch

hop +‎ scotch (“scratch”)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑpˌskɑt͡ʃ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɒpˌskɒt͡ʃ/

hopscotch (uncountable)

1. (playground games) A child's game, in which a player, hopping on one foot, drives a stone from one compartment to another of a figure traced or scotched on the ground.
   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 5]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgotten pickeystone.

• hopper

hopscotch (third-person singular simple present hopscotches, present participle hopscotching, simple past and past participle hopscotched)

1. (intransitive, figuratively) To move by hopping.
   • 2022 April 6, Michael Steinberger, “How the ​​‘Homeless Billionaire’ Became a Philosopher King”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     As he hopscotched around the world on his Gulfstream IV — he got rid of his homes but kept his private plane — he found himself spending more and more time in Los Angeles, and he also rediscovered his interest in politics and philosophy.

2. (intransitive, figuratively) To move back and forth between adjacent patterns by or as if by hopping.
   • 1979 April 28, Pat M. Kuras, “Connecting With Women”, in Gay Community News, page 15:

     Although the events described hop-scotch back and forth in time, the story moves along in an orderly fasion ^[sic] and is rarely rambling.