skerry
Americannoun
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a small, rocky island.
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a coastline with a series of such islands offshore.
noun
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a small rocky island
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a reef
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of skerry
1605–15; Shetland dial. skerri a rock in the sea < Old Norse sker (genitive plural skerja ) rock or reef (in the sea). See scar 2
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.
For years I coloured your world in hues you didn't recognise; never your island, always your skerry – "unable to see the romance of the thing for the thing itself".
From The Guardian • Apr. 9, 2010
To which—with a prolonged yawn—the prospective client drawled out: "I ain't particular, Mister, I jest thought I'd get you to pick out a few skerry fellows that would complemise easy!"
From Something of Men I Have Known With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective by Stevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing)
In a cleft on the skerry was a patch of green grass.
From Weird Tales from Northern Seas by Bain, R. Nisbet (Robert Nisbet)
When the sun went below the sea-margin there lay before him on the skerry some mouldering linen rags and nought else.
From Weird Tales from Northern Seas by Bain, R. Nisbet (Robert Nisbet)
"This is the scheer," said our captain, using a word which recalled to my mind, at once, the Swedish skär, and the English skerry, used alike to denote a coast-group of rocky islets.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 79, May, 1864 by Various
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.
