This word was used in my family when I was growing up and I've never heard it anywhere else.
There is a similar word "noodge" meaning irritating, but it doesn't have the deliberate part and it's moderately widespread on the Island. A noodge can be irritating and not know it; a skutch knows it, yet keeps on going.
My parents spent their whole lives in the same village. My father was Austrian/Slovak and my mother is 100% Irish.
Can anyone help figure out where this word came from and what it really means?
Thanks!
Urban dictionary has entries both for scutch and skutch.Â
Without doing formal research I'd agree with DeaconB's source giving scocciare as a likely source. In my experience, it is pretty widespread slang, at least anywhere Italian-Americans can be found.
scocciare
However, I might have spelled it as skootch.
I wouldn't confuse it with the slang verb for moving over or moving slightly. Also, I wouldn't confuse it with the slang for a tiny bit. For this meaning I would use the spelling and pronunciation of skosh which, perhaps surprisingly, comes from Japanese! It seems that for some scootch is a variant of skosh.
[edit: added the following]
I hasten to add to the pronunciation given above that a common pronunciation of scocciare in many dialects of Italian would be close to skoo-CHAR-(ray). This common or familiar pronunciation is my presumed source of skootch in the sense of an irritating person.