Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To leave hastily; flee.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A hasty, disorderly flight.
  • To spill; scatter.
  • To betake one's self hastily to flight; run away; scamper off, as through fear or in panic.

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

  • intransitive verb Slang, U. S. To betake one's self to flight, as if in a panic; to flee; to run away.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To move or run away quickly.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb run away, as if in a panic
  • noun a hasty flight

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably alteration of British dialectal scaddle, to run off in fear, from scaddle, wild, thievish, skittish, from Middle English scathel, wild, harmful, probably of Old Norse origin; akin to skadha, to hurt, scathe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably an alteration of British dialect scaddle ("to run off in a fright"), from the adjective scaddle ("wild, timid, skittish"), from Middle English scathel, skadylle ("harmful, fierce, wild"), of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse skaði ("harm"). Possibly related to the Greek σκέδασις (skedasis, "scattering"), σκεδασμός (skedasmos, "dispersion"). (US) Possibly related to scud or scat.

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Examples

Comments

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  • I say it like this "skeee-daddle!"

    June 23, 2008