Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In a skittish manner; restively; shyly; changeably.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adverb In a
skittish manner.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adverb in a skittish manner
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The blaze-faced chestnut was sensitive to the change in mood and began acting up, breaking stride and dancing skittishly around a turn.
Western Man Janet Dailey 2011
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The blaze-faced chestnut was sensitive to the change in mood and began acting up, breaking stride and dancing skittishly around a turn.
Western Man Janet Dailey 2011
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Gillian Keith fizzed skittishly and effortlessly as Zerbinetta, an acidulous sop to Orla Boylan's munificent, creamy but variably toned Ariadne.
The Turn of the Screw; Ariadne auf Naxos; Les pêcheurs de perles; Mitsuko Uchida Fiona Maddocks 2010
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Backstage, Trump has a case of nerves, skittishly pacing and shaking his legs to the beat.
FLY FISHING WITH DARTH VADER MATT LABASH 2010
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All of the regional actors now alter their calculus a bit, but none more obviously and skittishly than Karzai because he is really the one whose neck is in the noose.
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She took long breaks for costume changes and behaved skittishly, giving her backing singers a disproportionate amount of vocals.
Whitney Houston 2010
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I remember skittishly taking refuge in my own amused mother's lap the night before I moved far from home for my first real job.
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Rose looked at Kylie, who glanced around her skittishly, all the spark gone from her eyes.
When Rose Wakes Christopher Golden 2010
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I remember skittishly taking refuge in my own amused mother's lap the night before I moved far from home for my first real job.
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All of the regional actors now alter their calculus a bit, but none more obviously and skittishly than Karzai because he is really the one whose neck is in the noose.
yarb commented on the word skittishly
...when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions.
- Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 63
July 26, 2008