hopscotch

[skinem]

Sure, we all know this, but where'd it come from?

hop·scotch

Pronunciation: 'häp-"skäch
Function: noun
Etymology: 1hop + 2scotch (line, score)
: a child's game in which a player tosses an object (as a stone) into areas of a figure outlined on the ground and hops through the figure and back to regain the object

Function: intransitive verb
: to move as if by hopping <hopscotched across Europe>

[Perry]

hopscotch
l789, from hop (v.) + scotch "scratch," from the lines scored in the dirt to make the squares for the game.

Interesting related sense of scotch.

scotch (v.)
"stamp out, crush," 1825, earlier "make harmless for a time" (1798; a sense that derives from the reading of "Macbeth" III.ii.13), from scocchen "to cut, score, gash" (c.1412), perhaps from Anglo-Fr. escocher, O.Fr. cocher "to notch, nick," from coche "a notch, groove," probably from L. coccum "berry of the scarlet oak," which appears notched, from Gk. kokkos.