skittish
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Probably from skite (“to move lightly and hurriedly; to move suddenly, particularly in an oblique direction (Scotland, Northern England)”) + -ish; compare skitter.
Pronunciation[edit]
- IPA(key): /ˈskɪtɪʃ/
- (T-flapping) IPA(key): [ˈskɪɾɪʃ]
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -ɪtɪʃ
- Hyphenation: skit‧tish
Adjective[edit]
skittish (comparative more skittish, superlative most skittish)
- Easily scared or startled; timid.
- The dog likes people he knows, but he is skittish around strangers.
- 1557, Roger Edgeworth, Sermons Very Fruitfull, Godly, and Learned, London: Robert Caly, The fiftenth treatice or Sermon,[1]
- All such be like a skittish starting horse, whiche coming ouer a bridge, wil start for a shadowe, or for a stone lying by him, and leapeth ouer on the other side into the water, & drowneth both horse and man.
- Wanton; changeable; fickle.
- c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
- How some men creep in skittish fortune’s hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
- 1785, William Cowper, “Book II. The Time-piece.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, page 69:
- […] ’Tis pitiful
To court a grin, when you should wooe a soul;
To break a jest, when pity would inspire
Pathetic exhortation; and t’ address
The skittish fancy with facetious tales,
When sent with God’s commission to the heart.
- Difficult to manage; tricky.
- 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 15, in Middlemarch […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book (please specify |book=I to VIII):
- For everybody’s family doctor was remarkably clever, and was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management and training of the most skittish or vicious diseases.
Synonyms[edit]
- (easily scared or startled): spookish, jumpy, skittery, skitterish, squirrelly
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
easily scared
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fickle
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