0 to sink your own ship on purpose --
1 to cause something such as a plan or an opportunity to fail: --
Scuppers can also be placed in a parapet, for the same purpose.
Will she also tell us what advice she would give to those in business whose investment plans have been scuppered by the stark collapse of her economic strategy?
How many farmers, as well as seeing their pension prognosis scuppered, have seen the value of their herds, their stock and, therefore, their bankability, wiped out overnight?
The public relations exercise was angled in order to persuade people that it was all the fault of the wicked trade unions; they had scuppered the whole policy.
With immense relief to the industry that was eventually scuppered.
He is the man who scuppered his predecessors' promises to bring in automatic train protection.
He said that we were scuppered by the speculators.
The agreement also scuppers the basis for environmental constraints, because it is a polluters charter.