skell

skell noun: a homeless person, especially one who sleeps in the New York subway.

Noun

skell (plural skells)

(New-York, US, slang) a homeless person, especially one who sleeps in the New York subway.
- Did you see those two skells lying in the doorway?
(New-York, US, jargon, slang) A male suspicious person or crime suspect, especially a street person such as a drug dealer, pimp or panhandler.

Verb

skell (third-person singular simple present skells, present participle skelling, simple past and past participle skelled)

(intransitive, slang) To fall off or fall over.
- She went skelling over on the ice.

Forms of skell

Noun
plural	skells
alternative form	skel
Verb
third-person singular present	skells
present participle	skelling
past participle	skelled
past	skelled

Origin of skell

* Perhaps from skeleton, describing the often skeletal appearance of drug users. * Alternatively, from skellum or skelder ("to beg in the streets"). Used by Ben Jonson, 1599. * In the sense of a suspicious person, popularized by the American TV police drama NYPD Blue.

Words that rhyme with skell

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about skell

What does skell mean?: Skell means a homeless person, especially one who sleeps in the New York subway.
What part of speech is skell?: Skell can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of skell?: The plural of skell is skells.

Words near skell in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: skell (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-skell.ogg.

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