Etymology From Middle English sculle (“a type of oar”), of uncertain origin, possibly from North Germanic, from Old Norse skola (“to rinse, wash”).
1
To row a boat using a scull or sculls.
The afternoon sun was getting low as the Rat sculled gently homewards in a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to himself, and not paying much attention to Mole.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
2
To skate while keeping both feet in contact with the ground or ice.
The sculls were so tender, that they generally fell to pieces on being touched. The other bones were stronger. There were some teeth which were judged to be smaller than those of an adult; a scull which on a slight view, appeared to be that of an infant, […]1801, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, page 144:
2
A skull cap. A small bowl-shaped helmet, without visor or bever.
The scull is a head piece, without visor or bever, resembling a bowl or bason, such as was worn by our cavalry, within twenty or thirty years.1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 11:
scull
verb
Etymology See skull. The verb sense may derive from Danish/Norwegian/Swedish skål.
2005, Jane Egginton, Working and Living Australia, The Sunday Times, Cadogan Guides, UK, page 59, In 1954, Bob Hawke made the Guinness Book of Records for sculling 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds.
That way you get your opponent so gassed up from sculling beer that all he can think about is trying to burp without spewing.2005, Stefan Laszczuk, The Goddamn Bus of Happiness, page 75:
3 more examples
For a livelier scene, head here on Friday or Saturday night, when mass beer-sculling (chugging) and yodeling are accompanied by a brass band and costumed waitresses ferrying foaming beer steins about the atmospheric, cellarlike space.2006, Marc Llewellyn, Lee Mylne, Frommer′s Australia from $60 a Day, 14th edition, page 133:
After a three-day Torquay-to-Sydney road trip with his hosts, Noll rejoined his American temmates, unshaven and stinking of alcohol, the Team USA badge ripped from his warm-up jacket and replaced by an Aussie-made patch of Disney character Gladstone Gander sculling a frothy mug of beer.2010, Matt Warshaw, The History of Surfing, page 136:
I sipped it. It was thick and sweet and yuck. It went somewhere and did something I couldn't pinpoint. I sculled the rest.2020, Becky Manawatu, Auē, page 181:
Of fish that with their fins and shining scales Glide under the green wave , in sculls1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC: