skid

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The action of sliding or slipping over a surface, often sideways.
• noun A plank, log, or timber, usually one of a pair, used as a support or as a track for sliding or rolling heavy objects.
• noun A pallet for loading or handling goods, especially one having solid sideboards and no bottom.
• noun One of several logs or timbers forming a skid road.
• noun Nautical A wooden framework attached to the side of a ship to prevent damage, as when unloading.
• noun A shoe or drag applying pressure to a wheel to brake a vehicle.
• noun A runner in the landing gear of certain aircraft.
• noun A period of sharp decline or repeated losses.
• noun A path to ruin or failure.
• intransitive verb To slide, especially roughly or heavily.
• intransitive verb To slide sideways while moving because of loss of traction.
• intransitive verb To slide from forward momentum, especially during an attempt to stop: synonym: slide.
• intransitive verb To move sideways in a turn because of insufficient banking. Used of an airplane.
• intransitive verb Informal To fall or decline sharply.
• intransitive verb To brake (a wheel) with a skid.
• intransitive verb To haul on a skid or skids.

from The Century Dictionary.

• A variant of scud.
• To place or move on a skid or skids.
• To support by means of skids.
• To check with a skid, as wheels in going down-hill.
• To slide along without revolving, as a wheel: said also of any object mounted on wheels so moving.
• noun Nautical:
• noun A framework of planks or timber fitted to the outside of a ship abreast of the hatches, to prevent injury to the side while cargo is hoisted in or out.
• noun A strut or post to sustain a beam or deck, or to throw the weight of a heavy object upon a part of the structure able to bear the burden
• noun One of a pair of timbers in the waist to support the larger boats when aboard.
• noun A log forming a track for a heavy moving object; a timber forming an inclined plane in loading or unloading heavy articles from trucks, etc.
• noun One of a number of timbers resting on blocks, on which a structure, such as a boat, is built.
• noun A metal or timber support for a cannon.
• noun One of a pair of parallel timbers for supporting a barrel, a row of casks, or the like.
• noun The brake of a crane.
• noun A shoe or drag used for preventing the wheels of a wagon or carriage from revolving when descending a hill; hence, a hindrance or obstruction. Also called skid-pan.
• noun In lumbering, a log or pole, commonly used in pairs, upon which logs are handled or piled; also the log or pole laid transversely in a skid-road.
• noun A peeling-iron; an instrument for peeling bark from trees or logs.
• In lumbering: To draw (logs) from the stump to the skidway, landing, or mill.
• As applied to a road, to reinforce (it) by placing logs or poles across it.
• To check with a brake, as wheels, so that they will continue to slide but not to rotate, as the wheels of a moving train. (See skid, intransitive verb, 1.)
• To collect (logs) and pile upon a skidway.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• intransitive verb To slide without rotating; -- said of a wheel held from turning while the vehicle moves onward.
• intransitive verb To fail to grip the roadway; specif., to slip sideways on the road; to side-slip; -- said esp. of a cycle or automobile.
• transitive verb To protect or support with a skid or skids; also, to cause to move on skids.
• transitive verb To check with a skid, as wagon wheels.
• transitive verb (Forestry) To haul (logs) to a skid and load on a skidway.
• noun A shoe or clog, as of iron, attached to a chain, and placed under the wheel of a wagon to prevent its turning when descending a steep hill; a drag; a skidpan; also, by extension, a hook attached to a chain, and used for the same purpose.
• noun A piece of timber used as a support, or to receive pressure.
• noun (Naut.) Large fenders hung over a vessel's side to protect it in handling a cargo.
• noun One of a pair of timbers or bars, usually arranged so as to form an inclined plane, as form a wagon to a door, along which anything is moved by sliding or rolling.
• noun One of a pair of horizontal rails or timbers for supporting anything, as a boat, a barrel, etc.