Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word skitter. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word skitter, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say skitter in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word skitter you have here. The definition of the word skitter will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofskitter, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
I opened the cabinet and a number of cockroaches went skittering off into the darkness.
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; republished as Hunting Trips of a Ranchman: Sketches of Sport on the Northern Cattle Plains, Medora edition, New York, N.Y.; London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1885, →OCLC, page 56:
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.
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."
"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 the angler, standing in the bow, ‘skitters’ or skips the spoon or bait over the surface just at the edge of the weeds.
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.
Each day that I went, he stood off by himself, in solitude, came politely to the tee on his own, whacked to the right and left in a skitter of balls, his hair pinched in a clubhouse golf cap that didn't fit, his mouth in grim determination to not make an utter fool of himself, his golf clubs' vinyl bag with the ticket attached to signal his beginner's fees were paid.
With a skitter of excitement, Marcy glanced at the clock on the parlor mantel. It chimed ten, and her gaze flicked to the face of her husband as he lounged in his favorite chair with a newspaper in his lap.
"[…] 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.
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 Pathology, volume I, London: Baillière, Tindall & Cox, King William Street, Strand [et al.], published October 1875, →OCLC, page 244:
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.
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 front of your jeans, or bellow to be bucket-fed warm milk in the middle of the night, so that was a bonus.
2013, Cathal McCosker, “Wild Men Appear”, in Man Up and Paddle!: A Wild and Dangerous Circumnavigation around Ireland, : Lulu, →ISBN, page 43:
I can't give it my immediate attention, as the cow has the skitter (diarrhoea) and I'm waiting on the Vit (vet).
2014, Mango Gorman, “God Demands a Holocaust”, in Bone and Blood: A Berlin Novel, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire: Matador, →ISBN, page 56:
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.