Word.ws English Dictionary

scirmish

scirmish is the alternative form of skirmish.

Meaning of skirmish

Noun

skirmish (plural skirmishes)

  1. A brief battle between small groups, usually part of a longer or larger battle or war.
    • On 2 March, Chinese border guards with the help of regular PLA forces skillfully ambushed Strelnikov's unit on the ice near Chen Pao, killing him and 30 Soviets in the subsequent skirmish.1970 April 28, “Chen Pao Battle and Subsequent Threat Campaign”, in The Evolution of Soviet Policy in the Sino-Soviet Border Dispute, Directorate of Intelligence, published 2007, →OCLC, page 34
  2. (broadly, figuratively) Any minor dispute.
    • Three people were arrested after a skirmish in a bar.
    Synonyms:
    scrap
  3. A type of outdoor military style game using paintball or similar weapons.

See all 4 meanings of skirmish

Forms of scirmish

pluralscirmishes

Questions about scirmish

What is scirmish the alternative form of?
Scirmish is the alternative form of skirmish.

Words near scirmish in the dictionary

  1. Scire
  2. scire facias
  3. scire faciases
  4. Scires
  5. Scirii
  6. scirmish
  7. scirmishes
  8. sciroc
  9. scirocco
  10. sciroccos
  11. scirocs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scirmish (page history and authors); skirmish (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “scirmish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scirmish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.