skate

[skeyt]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR skate ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

ice skate(def 1).

roller skate.

the blade of an ice skate.

a skid on a lifeboat to facilitate launching from a listing ship.

verb (used without object), skat·ed, skat·ing.

to glide or propel oneself over ice, the ground, etc., on skates.

to glide or slide smoothly along.

Slang. to shirk one's duty; loaf.

(of the tone arm on a record player) to swing toward the spindle while a record is playing.

verb (used with object), skat·ed, skat·ing.

to slide (a flat) across the floor of a stage.

Idioms

get/put one's skates on, British Informal. to make haste.

skate on thin ice, to be or place oneself in a risky or delicate situation: Taking a public stand on the question would be skating on thin ice.

Origin of skate

1640–50; orig. plural scates < Dutch schaats (singular) skate, Middle Dutch schaetse stilt (compare Medieval Latin scatia) < ?

Related formsskate·a·ble, adjective

skate

[skeyt]

noun, plural (especially collectively) skate, (especially referring to two or more kinds or species) skates.

any of several rays of the genus Raja, usually having a pointed snout, as R. binoculata (big skate), inhabiting waters along the Pacific coast of the U.S., growing to a length of 8 feet (2.4 meters).

Origin of skate

1300–50; Middle English scate < Old Norse skati

skate

[skeyt]

noun Slang.

a person; fellow: He's a good skate.

a contemptible person.

an inferior, decrepit horse; nag.

Origin of skate

perhaps special use of skate²

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for skate

glide, glissade, skim, flow, coast

Examples from the Web for skate

Contemporary Examples of skate

Yeah, he wanted to skate and had never skated before, so I taught him when he was 58.
Putin’s Hockey Pal Tells All: Slava Fetisov on ‘Red Army,’ Soviet Nostalgia, and What Drives Putin
Marlow Stern
October 9, 2014
We'd skate and walk over the Mile Road and skate and walk over the railroad and skate some more.
Gordie Howe Hockey’s Greatest War Horse
W.C. Heinz
May 31, 2014
My sister Edna took one skate and I took the other, and I was so small that I put I it on right over my shoe.
Gordie Howe Hockey’s Greatest War Horse
W.C. Heinz
May 31, 2014
I kissed the skate key four times a day just to have something to do.
Mel Brooks Is Always Funny and Often Wise in This 1975 Playboy Interview
Alex Belth
February 16, 2014
You can watch Takahashi skate to the same music in the clip below.
Japan’s Beloved Deaf Composer is Neither Deaf Nor a Composer
Jimmy So
February 13, 2014

Historical Examples of skate

After this Tobias advanced, embraced his father, and then rubbed his eyes with the skate's liver.
My Double Life
Sarah Bernhardt
When in town, they skate or walk or visit the riding-school: all good.
The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862
Various
"You must throw that skate away," said Florent as he came up.
The Fat and the Thin
Emile Zola
We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them.
Essays, Second Series
Ralph Waldo Emerson
She learned to skate in three lessons,—and how she did it too!
Tony Butler
Charles James Lever

British Dictionary definitions for skate

skate

noun

See roller skate, ice skate

the steel blade or runner of an ice skate

such a blade fitted with straps for fastening to a shoe

a current collector on an electric railway train that collects its current from a third railCompare bow collector

get one's skates on to hurry

verb (intr)

to glide swiftly on skates

to slide smoothly over a surface

skate on thin ice to place oneself in a dangerous or delicate situation

Word Origin for skate

C17: via Dutch from Old French éschasse stilt, probably of Germanic origin

skate

noun plural skate or skates

any large ray of the family Rajidae, of temperate and tropical seas, having flat pectoral fins continuous with the head, two dorsal fins, a short spineless tail, and a long snout

Word Origin for skate

C14: from Old Norse skata

skate

noun

US slang a person; fellow

Word Origin for skate

from Scottish and northern English dialect skate, a derogatory term of uncertain origin

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for skate

n.1

"type of flat, cartilaginous fish, a kind of ray," mid-14c., from a Scandinavian source, cf. Old Norse skata "skate," Danish skade, Faeroese skøta, of unknown origin.

n.2

"ice skate," 1660s, skeates "ice skates," from Dutch schaats (plural schaatsen), a singular mistaken in English for plural, from Middle Dutch schaetse. The word and the custom were brought to England after the Restoration by exiled followers of Charles II who had taken refuge in Holland.

The Dutch word is from Old North French escache "a stilt, trestle," related to Old French eschace "stilt" (French échasse), from Frankish *skakkja "stilt" or a similar Germanic source (cf. Frisian skatja "stilt"), perhaps literally "thing that shakes or moves fast" and related to root of Old English sceacan "to vibrate" (see shake (v.)). Or perhaps [Klein] the Dutch word is connected to Middle Low German schenke, Old English scanca "leg" (see shank). Sense alteration in Dutch from "stilt" to "skate" is not clearly traced. Sense in English extended to roller-skates by 1876. Meaning "an act of skating" is from 1853.

1690s, "to ice-skate," from skate (n.2). U.S. slang sense of "to get away with something" is attested from 1945. Related: Skated; skating.

Idioms and Phrases with skate

skate

In addition to the idiom beginning with skate

skate over

also see:

cheap skate
on thin ice, skate