cuticle vs scute

cuticle and scute both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
cuticle	Yes	No	No	No
scute	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, scute is a hypernym of cuticle; that is, scute is a word with a broader meaning than cuticle:

cuticle: hard outer covering or case of certain organisms such as arthropods and turtles
scute: large bony or horny plate as on an armadillo or turtle or the underside of a snake

cuticle (noun)	scute (noun)
hard outer covering or case of certain organisms such as arthropods and turtles	large bony or horny plate as on an armadillo or turtle or the underside of a snake
the outer layer of the skin covering the exterior body surface of vertebrates
the dead skin at the base of a fingernail or toenail