skitter

Syllables: skit·terUK/ˈskɪtə(ɹ)//ˈskɪtɚ/

skitter verb: to move hurriedly or as by bouncing or twitching; to scamper, to scurry; to scuttle.

Image: Asierog, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb (1)

skitter (third-person singular simple present skitters, present participle skittering, simple past and past participle skittered)

(intransitive) To move hurriedly or as by bouncing or twitching; to scamper, to scurry; to scuttle.
- I opened the cabinet and a number of cockroaches went skittering off into the darkness.
- Some kinds of ducks in lighting strike the water with their tails first, and skitter along the surface for a few feet before settling down.1882, Theodore Roosevelt, “Waterfowl”, in Hunting Trips of a Ranchman; Hunting Trips on the Prairie and in the Mountains, New York, N.Y.; London: The Co-operative Publication Society, →OCLC...
Synonyms:

scamper, scurry
(intransitive) To make a scratching or scuttling noise while, or as if, skittering.
- Both "Dark Snow" and "Aurelia" [by AFI] feature subtle washes of brittle piano à la Decemberunderground, while "She Speaks The Language" boasts a skittering electronic underbelly, and eerie synths are suspended like low clouds in "Above The Bridge."2017 January 20, Annie Zaleski, “AFI Sounds Refreshed and Rejuvenated on Its 10th Album, AFI (The Blood Album)”, in The A.V. Club
(transitive) To move or pass (something) over a surface quickly so that it touches only at intervals; to skip, to skite.
- "Skittering," continued the Professor, "is practiced with a strong line about the length of the rod, to which is affixed a small trolling-spoon, a minnow, or a piece of pork-rind cut in the rude semblance of a small fish. The boat is poled along, as in ‘bobbing,’ but farther out in the stream, when...1883, James A[lexander] Henshall, “Black Bass Fishing”, in Alfred M[arshall] Mayer, editor, Sport with Gun and Rod in American Woods and Waters, New York, N.Y.: The Century Company, →OCLC, page 394
Synonyms:

skip, skite

Noun (1)

skitter (plural skitters)

(also, figuratively) A skittering movement.
- A skitter of activity.
  A skitter of gooseflesh.
- I had seen an aerial helix of raptors, hawks and harriers riding a thermal, and below them a skitter of ringed plover and other waders, together with more kingfishers than I had ever seen before.1976 June 3, John Hillaby, “Out and About: Firebird”, in Bernard Dixon, editor, New Scientist, volume 70, number 1003, London: New Science Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 543, column 1

Verb (2)

skitter (third-person singular simple present skitters, present participle skittering, simple past and past participle skittered)

(Northern England, Scotland, transitive) To cause to have diarrhea.
- "[…] I'd like you to give the calves two heaped tablespoonfuls [of Epsom salts] three times a day." / "Oh 'ell, you'll skitter the poor buggers to death!" / "Maybe so, but there's nothing else for it," I said.1970, James Herriot [pseudonym; James Alfred Wight], If Only They Could Talk, London: Michael Joseph, →ISBN
(Northern England, Scotland, intransitive) To suffer from a bout of diarrhea; to produce thin excrement.
- As a symptomatic phenomenon, Diarrhœa is skittering, i.e., the discharges are composed of water, intermingled with particles of imperfectly digested food; from two to six or eight discharges may thus take place, and it is an invariable precursor of constipation.1875 August 3, Thomas Walley, “The Differentiation in the Characters and Symptoms of Gastro-intestinal Affections”, in George Fleming, editor, The Veterinary Journal and Annals of Comparative...
- And when health problems struck, as they inevitably would, no matter how attentive the farmer, the tree had to be nursed until it was better. […] Jeez, and I'd thought mothering week-old orphan calves back in Scotland had been a headache! Still, at least a tree couldn't skitter diarrhoea down the...2001, Peter Kerr, “Wood for Thought”, in Mañana, Mañana: One Mallorcan Summer, Chichester, West Sussex: Summersdale Publishers, →ISBN

Noun (2)

skitter (plural skitters)

(Northern England, Scotland, uncountable) Often skitters: the condition of suffering from diarrhea; thin excrement.
- I can't give it my immediate attention, as the cow has the skitter (diarrhoea) and I'm waiting on the Vit (vet).2013, Cathal McCosker, “Wild Men Appear”, in Man Up and Paddle!: A Wild and Dangerous Circumnavigation around Ireland, [Morrisville, N.C.?]: Lulu, →ISBN, page 43
- Shaking but making herself stand there while skitter ran down the inside of her legs. She learnt German early from Anna. Durchfall easier to spell than Diarrhoea. Falling liquid brown.2014, Mango Gorman, “God Demands a Holocaust”, in Bone and Blood: A Berlin Novel, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire: Matador, →ISBN, page 56

skitter meaning in Tamil

skitter in Tamil

விரைந்தோடு, தளப்பரப்பில் பட்டும் படாமல் குதித்தோடு, தெறித்தோடு

Examples of skitter in a sentence

The boat is poled along, as in ‘bobbing,’ but farther out in the stream, when the angler, standing in the bow, ‘skitters’ or skips the spoon or bait over the surface just at the edge of the weeds.1883, James A[lexander] Henshall, “Black Bass Fishing”, in Alfred M[arshall] Mayer, editor, Sport with Gun and Rod in American Woods and...
With a skitter of excitement, Marcy glanced at the clock on the parlor mantel.2010, Julie Lessman, A Hope Undaunted: A Novel (Winds of Change; 1), Grand Rapids, Mich.: Revell Books, Baker Publishing Group, →ISBN...
Still, at least a tree couldn't skitter diarrhoea down the front of your jeans, or bellow to be bucket-fed warm milk in the middle of the night, so that was a bonus.2001, Peter Kerr, “Wood for Thought”, in Mañana, Mañana: One Mallorcan Summer, Chichester, West Sussex: Summersdale Publishers, →ISBN:

All 15 example sentences with skitter

Synonyms of skitter

Forms of skitter

Verb
third-person singular present	skitters
present participle	skittering
past participle	skittered
past	skittered
Noun
plural	skitters

Past tense of skitter: skittered

Origin of skitter

Possibly a frequentative of skite (“to move lightly and hurriedly; to move suddenly, particularly in an oblique direction”) (Scotland, Northern England). The noun is derived from the verb.

From skite (“to defecate”) + -er (frequentative suffix). The noun is derived from the verb.

Words formed from skitter

Words that rhyme with skitter

18 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about skitter

What does skitter mean?: Skitter means to move hurriedly or as by bouncing or twitching; to scamper, to scurry; to scuttle.
What is skitter in Tamil?: Skitter in Tamil is விரைந்தோடு, தளப்பரப்பில் பட்டும் படாமல் குதித்தோடு, தெறித்தோடு. See Skitter meaning in Tamil.
How do you use skitter in a sentence?: The boat is poled along, as in ‘bobbing,’ but farther out in the stream, when the angler, standing in the bow, ‘skitters’ or skips the spoon or bait over the surface just at the edge of the weeds.
What part of speech is skitter?: Skitter can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce skitter?: Skitter is pronounced /ˈskɪtə(ɹ)/ (UK).
What is the past tense of skitter?: The past tense of skitter is skittered.

Words near skitter in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: skitter (page history and authors); skitter (Tamil 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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-skitter.ogg.

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