helter-skelter

In form a reduplication (similar to hurry-scurry and harum-scarum, both with initial /h-/ and /sk-/); perhaps based on Middle English skelten ("to hasten; to raise an alarm"), or maybe related to Old High German skeltan (“scold”) from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kel- (“make noise, yell”), employed as a fossil word.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌhɛltɚˈskɛltɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌhɛltəˈskɛltə/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛltə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: hel‧ter-‧skel‧ter

helter-skelter (comparative more helter-skelter, superlative most helter-skelter)

1. In confused, disorderly haste.
   • 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter II, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC, page 21:

     But the butterflies were dead. A whiff of rotten eggs had vanquished the pale clouded yellows which came pelting across the orchard and up Dods Hill and away on to the moor, now lost behind a furze bush, then off again helter-skelter in a broiling sun.

   • 1998, Deborah J. Bennett, Randomness, Harvard University Press, page 104:

     Pellets, once released from the funnel, would bounce helter-skelter, left or right, against the pins […] to ultimately gather in the lower compartments in a pile which resembles a normal curve.

helter-skelter (comparative more helter-skelter, superlative most helter-skelter)

1. Carelessly hurried and confused.

   The winds knocked huge trees helter-skelter all over my garden.

   • 1972, Carol A. Nemeyer, Scholarly Reprint Publishing in the United States, New York, N.Y.: R. R. Bowker Co., →ISBN, page 7:

     After World War II, from 1945 until the early 1960s, the helter-skelter growth of the reprint industry went largely unheeded by the general publishing industry, then under its own mounting pressures to publish new works for a growing reading public and ever-larger numbers of educational institutions.

   • 1994, Warren Bargad, "To Write the Lips of Sleepers": The Poetry of Amir Gilboa, page 232:

     Although his existential thoughts seem to have been tossed onto the page in helter-skelter fashion, what Gilboa does here is to open his mind and heart to the reader through verbal jaggedness and poetic unneatness.

• willy-nilly
• pell-mell

helter-skelter (countable and uncountable, plural helter-skelters)

1. Confusion or turmoil.
   • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:

     ‘I hardly know, — I imagine that it was with some dim idea of Marjorie’s being able to get in if she returned while I was absent, — but the truth is I was in such a condition of helter skelter that I am not prepared to swear that I had any reasonable reason.’

   • 2014, busbee, Meghan Kabir, “Enemy Fire”, in Young Blood‎, performed by Bea Miller:

     (Oh, oh, oh) / I'm looking for some shelter / (Oh, oh, oh) / From the helter-skelter / (Oh, oh, oh) / Just keep me away from / All who conspire / (Enemy fire...)

2. (chiefly British) An amusement ride consisting of a slide that spirals down around the exterior of a tapering central tower.
   • 1905 September 30, The Independent, Footscray, Vic, page 2, column 4:

     He is finishing, this week, a remarkable thing called a helter skelter: This is a circular building 50 feet high which people climb, by means of an interior winding stair. At the top they each take a seat in a semicircular wooden trough which curls around the outside of the house, gradually leading towards the ground with a terrific rush, they slide down this and are rapidly delivered on to the grass below.

   • 2015, Louise Spilsbury, Ride that Rollercoaster!, page 12:

     For gentler sliding fun, you can take a ride on the helter-skelter.