Scaramouch, scaramouch, something about Fandango?

scaramouch

From the seventeenth century, this term has indicated a lazy, swaggering coward. Based on a character from early Italian comedy who was often pummeled for his knavish actions, the word as a verb meant to act in such a manner. The meaning of waht later became skirmish was soon broadened to include encounters between groups of soldiers. Shakespeare used the expression "skirmish of wit" in 1599 to indicate verbal confrontation. The nineteenth-century rugby term scrummage and the related American footbal term scrimmage are other modern adaptations.


(from Carmen's Forgotten English Knowledge Cards)