To spread or throw things loosely in various directions, or the plural of scatter—small separate things spread over an area.
From Middle English 'scateren,' origin uncertain but possibly from Old Norse 'skattr' meaning a dispersed thing. The current spelling appeared by the 1300s.
Scatter plots in statistics scatter data points across a graph to find patterns—it's the same word because the mathematicians needed to describe how they're spreading points around to visualize relationships, proving that even super technical jargon often borrows from simple everyday words.
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