skedaddle
UK/skɪˈdædɫ̩/
skedaddle verb: to move or run away quickly.
Verb
skedaddle (third-person singular simple present skedaddles, present participle skedaddling, simple past and past participle skedaddled)
- To move or run away quickly.
- "Well," continued the youth, "lots of good-a-'nough men have thought they was going to do great things before the fight, but when the time come they skedaddled."1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter II, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 29
- Looked up at your office and all of it empty and I nearly cried. Cigar guy, out viewing his big time display window comes across the street. Wants to know if he can help. Told him to mind his own business. You know what he said, sister if you got any connection with that guy, they caught up with...1963, J P Donleavy, A Singular Man, published 1963 (USA), page 204
- Synonyms:
- beat feet
- To spill; to scatter.
Noun
skedaddle (plural skedaddles)
- The act of running away; a scurrying off.
skedaddle meaning in Malayalam
skedaddle in Malayalam
- run, run away, flee
- തിരക്കിട്ടോടുക, ഓടിക്കളയുക, അപ്രത്യക്ഷമാകുക, കടക്കുക, ഓടിരക്ഷപ്പെടുക, സ്ഥലംവിടുക
Synonyms of skedaddle
Forms of skedaddle
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | skedaddles |
| present participle | skedaddling |
| past participle | skedaddled |
| past | skedaddled |
| Noun | |
| plural | skedaddles |
Origin of skedaddle
First use appears c. 1861, in the New York Tribune. The word appeared and gained prominence in Civil War military contexts around 1861, and rapidly passing into more general use. Possibly an alteration of British dialect scaddle (“to run off in a fright”), from the adjective scaddle (“wild, timid, skittish”), from Middle English scathel, skadylle (“harmful, fierce, wild”), of North Germanic/Scandinavian origin, from Old Norse *skǫðull; akin to Old Norse skaði (“harm”). Possibly related to the Ancient Greek σκέδασις (skédasis, “scattering”), σκεδασμός (skedasmós, “dispersion”). Possibly related to scud or scat.
Words formed from skedaddle
Words that rhyme with skedaddle
Questions about skedaddle
- What does skedaddle mean?
- Skedaddle means to move or run away quickly.
- What is skedaddle in Malayalam?
- Skedaddle in Malayalam is തിരക്കിട്ടോടുക, ഓടിക്കളയുക, അപ്രത്യക്ഷമാകുക. See Skedaddle meaning in Malayalam.
- What part of speech is skedaddle?
- Skedaddle can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce skedaddle?
- Skedaddle is pronounced /skɪˈdædɫ̩/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of skedaddle?
- The past tense of skedaddle is skedaddled.
Words near skedaddle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: skedaddle (page history and authors); skedaddle (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-skedaddle.ogg, en-au-skedaddle.ogg.
Cite this entry: “skedaddle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skedaddle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.