Word.ws English Dictionary

skittish

Syllables: skit·tish/ˈskɪtɪʃ/

skittish adjective: easily scared or startled; timid.

Adjective

skittish (comparative more skittish, superlative most skittish)

  1. Easily scared or startled; timid.
    • The dog likes people he knows, but he is skittish around strangers.
    • All such be like a skittish starting horse, whiche coming ouer a bridge, wil start for a shadowe, or for a stone lying by him, and leapeth ouer on the other side into the water, & drowneth both horse and man.1557, Roger Edgeworth, Sermons Very Fruitfull, Godly, and Learned, London: Robert Caly, The fiftenth treatice or Sermon
  2. Wanton; changeable; fickle.
    • How some men creep in skittish fortune’s hall,
      Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • […] ’Tis pitiful
      To court a grin, when you should wooe a soul;
      To break a jest, when pity would inspire
      Pathetic exhortation; and t’ address
      The skittish fancy with facetious tales,
      When sent with God’s commission to the heart.1785, William Cowper, “Book II. The Time-piece.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, page 69
  3. Difficult to manage; tricky.
    • For everybody’s family doctor was remarkably clever, and was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management and training of the most skittish or vicious diseases.1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 15, in Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book (please...

skittish meaning in Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

skittish in Urdu

ڈگمگ, سبک سر

skittish in Malayalam

lively, playful, high-spirited
ലീലാലോലുപമായ, ഓജസ്സുള്ള, സജീവമായ, ഉല്ലാസപ്രകൃതമായ, ഊർജ്ജസ്വലതയുള്ള, ആവേശമുള്ള
excitable, restive, nervous
ഇളകുന്ന, വിറളിയായ, മുമ്പോട്ടു നീങ്ങാൻ ഇഷ്ടമില്ലാത്ത, മർക്കടമുഷ്ടിയുള്ള, വഴങ്ങാത്ത, അനുനയിക്കാൻ വയ്യാത്ത

skittish in Kannada

ಚುರುಕಾದ, ಆಟವಾಡುವ, ದಿಗಿಲುಬೀಳುವ

Synonyms of skittish

All synonyms of skittish

Forms of skittish

comparativemore skittish
superlativemost skittish

Origin of skittish

Probably from skite (“to move lightly and hurriedly; to move suddenly, particularly in an oblique direction (Scotland, Northern England)”) + -ish; compare skitter.

Words formed from skittish

Words that rhyme with skittish

Questions about skittish

What does skittish mean?
Skittish means easily scared or startled; timid.
What is skittish in Urdu?
Skittish in Urdu is ڈگمگ, سبک سر. See Skittish meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is skittish?
Skittish is an adjective.
How do you pronounce skittish?
Skittish is pronounced /ˈskɪtɪʃ/.

Words near skittish in the dictionary

  1. skitterings
  2. skitterish
  3. skitters
  4. skittery
  5. skitting
  6. skittish
  7. skittishly
  8. skittishness
  9. skittle
  10. skittle alley
  11. skittle alleys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skittish (page history and authors); skittish (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); skittish (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); skittish (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: en-us-skittish.ogg.

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