Word.ws English Dictionary

skirting

skirting is the present participle and gerund of skirt.

Noun

skirting (countable and uncountable, plural skirtings)

  1. Skirting boards collectively.
    • Challenger looked up at the cornice and round at the skirting.1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019
    • The stateroom walls are veneered with finely figured English chestnut with the skirting and mouldings in English walnut.1947 January and February, “South African Royal Train”, in Railway Magazine, page 36
  2. skirts collectively; material for skirts
  3. The act of one who skirts around something, or avoids it.
    • […] superficial: many of their descriptions, together with their own candid and often amusing comments and reactions, are well worth noting and reflecting upon; their skirtings around the laws of defamation are a joy to read and a lesson to us all; […]1982, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research

Meaning of skirt

Verb

skirt (third-person singular simple present skirts, present participle skirting, simple past and past participle skirted)

  1. To be on or form the border of.
    • The plain was skirted by rows of trees.
  2. To move around or along the border of; to avoid the center of.
    • skirt a mountain
  3. To cover with a skirt; to surround.
    • skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
  4. (figuratively) To avoid or ignore (something); to manage to avoid (something or a problem); to skate by (something).
    • Near-synonym: circumvent
    Synonyms:
    circumvent

See all 13 meanings of skirt

Forms of skirting

pluralskirtings

Phrases with skirting

Questions about skirting

What does skirting mean?
Skirting means skirting boards collectively.
What is skirting the present participle and gerund of?
Skirting is the present participle and gerund of skirt.
What part of speech is skirting?
Skirting is a noun.
What is the plural of skirting?
The plural of skirting is skirtings.

Words near skirting in the dictionary

  1. skirteth
  2. skirtful
  3. skirtfuls
  4. skirtie
  5. skirties
  6. skirting
  7. skirting around
  8. skirting board
  9. skirting boards
  10. skirting-board
  11. skirting-boards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skirting (page history and authors); skirt (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: “skirting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skirting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.