skedaddle

[prettygoodword]

skedaddle (ski-DAD-l) - v., to run away hurriedly, flee, scram.


Vamoose, even. There can be a connotation of a panic, but not necessarily -- a sense of hurry is almost always there, though. This is another colorful 19th century Americanism, this one dating to 1859. One suggested origin is probably an alteration of British dialect scaddle, to run off in a fright, from scaddle, wild/timid/skittish, from Middle English scathel/skadylle, harmful/fierce/wild, of Scandinavian origin akin to Old Norse skathi, harm, from whence we got a modern cognate scathe. Another suggestion, however, connects it to Scots (and N. England) skedaddle, to spill/scatter, and related word skiddle, to move away quickly.

But that's enough etymology -- time to skedaddle back to work!

---L.

Comments

[x_little_star_x]

Skedaddle is a very fun word~ Though I feel it’s very telling of me that my first association with it is through Pokémon of all things.

[prettygoodword]

Heh. Had to look that up -- an attack of Aipom. Or is there something else as well?

[x_little_star_x]

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky. There’s a scene where the antagonist, Skuntank, says to his team, “It’s time to skedaddle boys!” and after they’ve run off, another Pokémon, Dusknoir, says something along the lines of, “They sure are good at skedaddling.”

[prettygoodword]

Heh. No, I missed that one. But also, heh.