The Old French word escoutilles, corrupted to scuttle in English, first meant a hatch on a ship, then meant the hole or hatchway in the hatch, and finally was used as a verb meaning to open a hole in a ship in order to sink or scuttle her. The cask or butt of drinking water on ships was called a scuttlebutt because it was a butt with a square hole cut in it, and since sailors exchanged gossip when they gathered at the scuttlebutt for a drink of water, scuttlebutt became U.S. Navy slang for gossip or rumors, in about 1935.