scatter

scatter about

1. To strew, distribute, or disperse things all around (some place), especially in a haphazard or aimless manner. A noun or pronoun can be used between "scatter" and "about." I leaped into the pile of leaves and scattered them about. The cat jumped onto my desk and scattered about all my important documents. I scattered my grandmother's ashes about the field, as she instructed in her will.
2. To separate and distribute rays of light in many different directions. A noun or pronoun can be used between "scatter" and "about." The crystal scatters the sunlight about in a myriad of colors. The gems in the cave scattered about the light from the flashlight.
See also: scatter

scatter around

1. To strew, distribute, or disperse things all around (some place), especially in a haphazard or aimless manner. A noun or pronoun can be used between "scatter" and "around." I leaped into the pile of leaves and scattered them around. The cat jumped onto my desk and scattered around all my important documents. I scattered my grandmother's ashes around the field, as she instructed in her will.
2. To separate and distribute rays of light in many different directions. A noun or pronoun can be used between "scatter" and "around." The crystal scatters the sunlight around in a myriad of colors. The gems in the cave scattered around the light from the flashlight.
See also: around, scatter

scatterbrain

Someone who is very forgetful, unfocused, or disorganized. Sorry for forgetting about your recital. I've been such a scatterbrain, lately! We used to have a total scatterbrain managing our accounts, so things were all over the place for a while.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

scatter something about and scatter something around

to throw or distribute something about. The children scattered the books about and left the room in a general mess. They scattered about all the books and papers.
See also: and, around, scatter
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

scatterbrain

n. a forgetful person; someone who is mentally disorganized. Aunt Martha is a real scatterbrain. She always forgets where her glasses are.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • scatter about
  • scatter about and scatter around
  • scatter around
  • scattering
  • angle
  • angling
  • not do (someone or oneself) any favors
  • (Is) this taken?
  • interpret for
  • interpret for (someone)
References in periodicals archive
Professional services available online such as ashes to the wind.com of Sedona, that are properly insured and licensed, bring comfort to grieving family and friends in knowing the ashes will be treated with respect and scattered in accordance with federal and state laws.
Where to Scatter Ashes - Sedona Company Has Answers
2; l(q) is the intensity of scattered radiation; I(0) is the intensity of the incident beam.
Investigation of melt extensional deformation of ethylene-vinyl acetate nanocomposites using small-angle light scattering
If the air near the ground is thick with dust or pollution, orange, pink, and red lights are more likely to scatter with brilliant effects.
Ready, set, sun!
The signal used in this case is the Back Scattered Electron (BSE) signal.
ESEM provides information critical to understanding dissolution behavior of nanoscale particles
The intensity of the scattered light relative to the incident light intensity follows [[lambda].sup.-4]; thus, the solution of particles will scatter light with an intensity more than ninefold greater for violet (400 nm) than for red (700 nm) light (5).
Evaluating interference caused by lipemia
"There's not really a dominant fiber in the bath and scatter rug industry," she said, indicating an opportunity for retailers to create more awareness of the cotton rug product and duplicate the brand's success in bath and bedding home textiles.
SURVEY: DESIRE SCATTERED FOR 100% COTTON IN BATH
The new process has to do with refraction--the fact that light is scattered as it moves through skin.
Making Tissue Temporarily Transparent
Tiny water particles in the skin refract and scatter light but by taking away the water, it means the skin tissue no longer scatters light as it passes through.
THE INVISIBLE MAN; Scientists discover how to make skin see-through
Mote divided the scientific users of the Shell Thornton Research Centre Library (United Kingdom) into three groups according to whether their fields of research were low, medium, or high scatter. Low scatter fields were defined as those in "which the underlying principles are well developed, the literature is well organized, and the width of the subject area is fairly well defined" (p.
Learning about the information seeking of interdisciplinary scholars and students
Although this example is the worst case (it assumes no absorption of incident power in the antenna load), it does indicate the potential magnitude of the problem presented to the radar cross section reduction (RCSR) designer by antenna scatter. SCATTERING FUNDAMENTALS
Antenna radar cross section
The importance of scatter corrections was understood relatively early in the development of X-ray tomography [4, 5].
Scatter Corrections in X-Ray Computed Tomography: A Physics-Based Analysis
Afia: Pattern scatter cushion [euro]29 (normally [euro]39)
Home LOVES; Home
Suppose electromagnetic waves at infinity, he says: the matter or boundary of the domain will scatter them and reflect them back to infinity.
Maxwell Equation: Inverse Scattering in Electromagnetism
Now, beyond the expected result that, irrespective of their size and in diluted systems, HPPs scatter light practically and independently one from the other, it is possible to observe two major features:
Theoretical study and experimental analysis of the scattering efficiency of hollow polymer particles in the dependent light scattering regime