Scotch collops/scotch a rumor

When I looked up “avlive” today in my Kunnskapsforlaget’s Stor Norsk-Engelsk Ordbok, I found this definition:

avlive verb 1. kill, put to death, put to sleep (especially of pets)
2. (by extension) put an end to, scotch (about rumors and the like)
• han prøvde å avlive ryktene som hadde oppstått he tried to scotch the rumours that had started

I’ve never heard the expression “scotch” used as a verb. So, as is so frequently the case when I look things up in my Norwegian to English dictionary, I had to look up the English term. I can’t help but feel that that would not be necessary with a good Norwegian to American English dictionary. Sigh.

Merriam-Webster assures me that it’s been used this way since the 15th century. So, as usual, my ignorance is part of the problem. But I do want to point out that I’m a very bookish person. I have a PhD in literature. I read a lot. So if I find something to be an obscure term, it’s probably not a term that is necessary in the Norwegian to English dictionary. If I, a native speaker of English, don’t have the term in my active vocabulary, I don’t recommend that Norwegians with English rusty enough that they need to use this dictionary go flinging the term around. Primarily because there’s a significant risk that the English speakers they’re trying to communicate with won’t understand it.

I did a quick search on Google to see how common the expressions are. Here are the number of hits I got:
“scotch the rumours” 604
“scotch the rumors” 190
“end the rumours” 1,670
“end the rumors” 21,700
This clearly shows that the use of “scotch” is more common with the UK spelling of “rumour” and thus probably chiefly British. If 21,000 people say “end the rumors,” I’m going to have to go with that.

As a fluke, however, I discovered something amazing while researching this in the OED. Although I am an American, my ethnicity is mostly UK in origin. And I grew up eating a meal we called “Scotch scallop” or “Scotch shlop” which was a bed of mashed potatoes, with a sautéed ground beef and onion mixture and a can of Leseur peas. I loved it. But I never had any idea what the scallops referred to or why no one else had heard of this meal.

Well, in researching “scotch” in the OED, I found the following meaning for “scotch”:

locally. Meat cut into small pieces. Scotch collops: ‘a savoury dish made of slic'd veal, bacon, forc'd meat and several other ingredients’ (Bailey 1730-6); now, a steak with onions. minced collops (Sc.): minced meat, mince.