skedaddle
Americanverb (used without object)
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skedaddles,
present (3rd person singular)
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skedaddled,
past participle, past
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skedaddling
present participle
noun
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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skedaddlesimple
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skedaddlessimple
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have skedaddledperfect
-
has skedaddledperfect
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am skedaddlingprogressive
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are skedaddlingprogressive
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is skedaddlingprogressive
-
have been skedaddlingperfect progressive
-
has been skedaddlingperfect progressive
Past
-
skedaddledsimple
-
had skedaddledperfect
-
was skedaddlingprogressive
-
were skedaddlingprogressive
-
had been skedaddlingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of skedaddle
1860–65, compare dial. ( Scots, N England) skedaddle to spill, scatter, skiddle to move away quickly
Explanation
When you skedaddle, you leave very suddenly. A kid who breaks a window with her baseball might decide to skedaddle before her neighbor comes home from work. You might decide to skedaddle from your aunt's party before she starts showing the slides from her vacation ten years ago, or skedaddle from the town swimming pool when it starts to rain. In either case, you're getting out of there, and fast. Skedaddle is American Civil War military slang, dating from about 1861 — experts aren't sure what its roots are.
Vocabulary lists containing skedaddle
Ben Zimmer's 30 Great American Words
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The Red Umbrella
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"Pitch Perfect," Vocabulary from the movie
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But even the vague threat of personal conflict and humiliation was enough to make him skedaddle down to Mar-a-Lago when it was time to go.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2023
There’s no reason pickleballers couldn’t play at the park when children are in school and then skedaddle in the afternoon, she said.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 22, 2022
Ernest Hemingway’s advice for novelists dealing with Hollywood was to stop on the east bank of the Colorado River, hold your nose, toss your screenplay over the state line, take the money and skedaddle.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2022
In such a situation, taking all this in, a sane character would run, flee, skedaddle, vamoose, make tracks and call in the cops, or maybe an airstrike.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 28, 2021
I leave five dollars in the jar for a bucket of bait and try to skedaddle before anybody thinks to ask what I’m up to.
From "The Young Man and the Sea" by Rodman Philbrick
But the annual spending bills won’t be completed before Friday, and then Congress skedaddles for a 17-day recess.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2024
And then he skedaddles before the bill comes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2018
How long till Kelly skedaddles back to college, as Spurrier did?
From New York Times ● Sep. 29, 2015
But Blanc will be invited to take the Liverpool job once Rafael Benítez skedaddles.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 6, 2010
The retreats were called "skedaddles," a term invented at the time by some wag.
From The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry With Legends of the Surrounding Country by Joseph Barry
What if instead of staying in the tomb, she skedaddled with a posy to the Renaissance club scene in Paris and found a new love?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 11, 2023
Usually the sheep walked away or skedaddled before any physical altercation actually broke out.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 17, 2022
One of the few positives is most investors seem to have skedaddled already.
From Reuters ● Feb. 11, 2022
Just then Quayle approached, and Paul skedaddled back to his seat.
From New York Times ● Dec. 7, 2018
Ordinary folk skedaddled out of it as fast as their horse or feet would carry them.
From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson
Shame on you for skedaddling anonymously and cowardly away.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 3, 2023
But Long’s soon skedaddling down the inside-left channel to win another corner for Saints.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 15, 2020
Johnson said she’s taken the middle seat on flights to make up for skedaddling on her fiancé—one of many favors Precheckers told me they perform to mitigate some of the inequities.
From Slate ● Jan. 4, 2020
I could see other critics, either through ignorance, deviousness or entitlement, cruising right around the line that everyone was supposed to stand in and skedaddling up the escalator to the theater.
From Salon ● Dec. 16, 2015
"That we'd better be skedaddling as quick as possible," shot out Pete, brusquely.
From The Border Boys Across the Frontier by John Henry Goldfrap
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
