skitters

Verb (1)

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

1. (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.

   Synonyms:

   scamper, scurry

2. (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
3. (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

Verb (2)

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

1. (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
2. (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...

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