Word.ws English Dictionary

skirmish

Syllables: skir·mish/ˈskɜːmɪʃ/US/ˈskɝmɪʃ/

skirmish noun: a brief battle between small groups, usually part of a longer or larger battle or war.

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
    • The walls are slitted with embrasures through which bowmen could fire, indicating that the belfry also served as a stronghold during border skirmishes.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 311, about the church at Pembridge
  2. (broadly, figuratively) Any minor dispute.
    • Three people were arrested after a skirmish in a bar.
    • Fires which have heretofore been one‐alarm skirmishes are now multialarm small wars.1977 February 14, Joseph E. Galvin, “Under Fire”, in The New York Times
    Synonyms:
    scrap
  3. A type of outdoor military style game using paintball or similar weapons.

Verb

skirmish (third-person singular simple present skirmishes, present participle skirmishing, simple past and past participle skirmished)

  1. (intransitive) To engage in a minor battle or dispute.
    • The deer and the pig and the nilghai were milling round and round in a circle of eight or ten miles radius, while the Eaters of Flesh skirmished round its edge.1895 November, Rudyard Kipling, The Second Jungle Book, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC
    • Other historians might also remark that […] they have persisted all this time, constantly wrestling and skirmishing and yet never destroying themselves.2019, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin, Macmillan, page 376

skirmish meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

skirmish in Hindi

brief battle between small groups
झड़प jhaṛap
minor dispute
झड़प jhaṛap, टकराव ṭakrāv

skirmish in Tamil

பூசல், மோதல், ஊடல்

skirmish in Urdu

brief battle between small groups
جھڑپ jhaṛap

skirmish in Bengali

খণ্ডযুদ্ধ, ছোট লড়াই
More languagesFewer languages
skirmish in Malayalam
കൂട്ടിമുട്ടൽ, ഏറ്റുമുട്ടൽ, സമരം, അടിപിടി
skirmish in Kannada
ಕಿರುಹೋರಾಟ, ಕಿರು ತಿಕ್ಕಾಟ, ಕದನ, ಹೊಡೆದಾಟ
skirmish in Tagalog
sagupaan
skirmish in Arabic
مُنَاوَشَة munāwaša

Examples of skirmish in a sentence

  • Although not a direct cause, the border skirmish was certainly a collateral incitement for the war.
  • In the first scenario, a minor skirmish escalated into a multiweek maritime blockade of Taiwan by China.
  • My flesh even knows how to break dance, it's so good at winning the skirmish.

All 21 example sentences with skirmish

Synonyms of skirmish

Forms of skirmish

Noun
pluralskirmishes
alternative formscirmish
Verb
third-person singular presentskirmishes
present participleskirmishing
past participleskirmished
pastskirmished

Plural of skirmish: skirmishes

Origin of skirmish

From Middle English skirmish (as a verb), from Old French escarmouche (“skirmish”), from Italian scaramuccia, earlier schermugio. Doublet of escarmouche, Scaramouche, and Scaramucci.

Words formed from skirmish

Questions about skirmish

What does skirmish mean?
Skirmish means a brief battle between small groups, usually part of a longer or larger battle or war.
What is skirmish in Hindi?
Skirmish in Hindi is झड़प (jhaṛap), टकराव (ṭakrāv). See Skirmish meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is skirmish?
Skirmish can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce skirmish?
Skirmish is pronounced /ˈskɜːmɪʃ/ (UK).
What is the plural of skirmish?
The plural of skirmish is skirmishes.

Words near skirmish in the dictionary

  1. skirled
  2. skirlie
  3. skirling
  4. skirlings
  5. skirls
  6. skirmish
  7. skirmished
  8. skirmisher
  9. skirmishers
  10. skirmishes
  11. skirmishing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skirmish (page history and authors); skirmish (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); skirmish (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); skirmish (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); skirmish (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-skirmish.wav.

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