skate 
On the Atlantic coast of North America the common little 
skate, a foot or two long, is It. erinacea, sometimes called 
tobacco-box. The big skate or ocullated ray is 11. occUatu, 
nearly 3 feet; the starry skate. It. radiate, of medium 
size, is found on both coasts ; A', eylanteria is the brier- 
skate, medium-sized, and not common. The largest is the 
barn-door skate. li. l&cis, about 4 feet long. The com- 
mon skate of the Pacific side is It. binocidata, and several 
others occur on the same coast. Some of these fishes are 
edible, and, on the continent of Europe, even esteemed. 
Their egg-cases (skate-barrows) are curious objects. See 
also cuts under Elasmobranchii, mermaid's -purse, and ray. 
Burton skate, Itaia alba or margtnata. [ Frov. Eng. ] 
Shagreen skate. See shayrecn. 
skate- (skat), n. [Formerly also scats; a later 
form, assumed as the sing, of the supposed pi. 
sktitat, also written skettti-s, scliects, the proper 
sing., < D. acluttttn, pi. si-liautsen, earlier schaet- 
sen, skates (gchaatertfder, a ' skate-rider/ ska- 
ter) (cf. Dan. skfiitc, a skate, < D. or E.); a later 
use of OD. and OFlera. schaetse, a high-heeled 
shoe, > OF. eschace, eschnsse, F. echasse, & stilt, 
trestle, ML. scacia, scatia, a stilt: see scittcltes. 
Cf. Icel. is-leggir, ' ice-bones,' shin-bones of 
sheep used for skates; and see slice, skid.'] A 
contrivance for enabling a person to glide 
swiftly on ice, consisting of a steel runner fixed 
5665 
akatol (skat'ol), . [< Gr. map (gen. 
dung, dirt, + -ol.] A crystalline volatile, nitro- 
genous principle, having an intense fecal odor, 
produced in the putrefactive changes which 
take place in the intestines. Its chemical com- 
position has not been determined, 
skavelt, . [Appar. a var. of shovel (AS. scnfl).'] 
A shovel. 
Sharpe cutting spade for the deuiding of mow, 
With skuppet and skattel that marshmen alow. 
Tusser, Husbandry, p. 38. (Dames.) 
skavie, n. Same as siiavie. 
skaw (ska), n. [Also scaw; Icel. skagi, a low 
cape or ness, < skaga, jut out, project. Cf. Dan. 
Skagen, the northern part of Jutland, Skager 
Rack, the water between Jutland and Norway.] 
A promontory. 
A child might travel with a purse of gold from Sum- 
burgh-head to the Scaw of Unst, and no soul would injure 
him. Scott, Pirate, viii. 
The wind failed us, 
And with a sudden flaw 
Came round the gusty Skaw. 
Longfellow, Skeleton in Armor. 
skaylest (skalz), . [Also skailes, skales; cf. 
kinjlcs, appar. the same game: see kail 2 .] A 
game played with pins and balls, something 
like ninepins or skittles. 
Aliossi, a play called nine pins or keeles, or skailes. 
Florio (1598). 
skean 1 , . Seesfcein 1 . 
skean 2 (sken), n. [Also skain, skeen, skene, for- 
merly skein, skeane, skayne, skeyn, skeyne; < Ir. 
Gael, sgian, a knife, = W. ysgien, a simitar, 
slicer ; cf . W. ysgi, a cutting off, a parer ; prob. 
< / ski (L. scindere, pret. scidi), cut: see scis- 
sion, schism.] A dagger; specifically, an an- 
cient form of dagger found in Ireland, usually 
skeer-devil 
The Times remarked on the word [skedaddle], and Lord 
Hill wrote to prove that it was excellent Scotch. The 
Americans only misapply the word, which means, in Dum- 
fries, "to spill" milkmaids, for example, saying, "You 
are tkedinldlimj all that milk." 
tlolten, Slang Dictionary, p. 292. 
" Why," they [my English friends] exclaimed, "we used 
t< live in Lancashire, and heard skedaddle every day of 
our lives. It means to scatter, or drop in a scattering 
way. If you run with a basket of potatoes or apples, and 
keep spilling gome of them in an irregular way along th- 
path, you are said to skedaddle them. Or if you carry a 
tumbler full of milk up-stairs, and what De (Juincey would 
call the ' titubation ' of your gait causes a row of drops of 
milk on the stair-carpet to mark your upward course, . . . 
you are said to have skedaddled the milk." 
The Atlantic, XL. 234. 
II. intrans. To betake one's self hastily to 
flight; run away; scamper off, as through fear 
or in panic. [Colloq. and ludicrous.] 
A special Government train, with a messenger, passed 
through here to-night. Western troops are expected hourly. 
Eebel skedaddling is the next thing on the programme. 
New York Tribune, War Correspondence, May 27, 1862. 
Skedaddle (ske-dad'l), . [< skedaddle, v.~\ A 
hasty, disorderly flight. [Colloq. and ludi- 
crous.] 
Their noisy drums had ceased, and suddenly I perceived 
a general skedaddle, as those upon our right flank started 
off in full speed. Sir S. Baker, Ismailia, p. 211. (Barttett.) 
skee (ske), n. [Also ski; < Dan. ski = Norw. ski, 
skid, skida = Sw. skid, < Icel. skitlh, a snow-shoe, 
prop, a billet of wood, = E. shide : see shide, and 
cf. skid*, skidder.] A wooden runner, of tough 
wood, from five to ten feet long, an inch or an 
inch and a half thick at the middle, but thinner 
J 
Skates. 
A, side view of American club-skate ; B, bottom of the skate with 
runner removed, a, runner ; *, heel-plate ; c, sole-plate ; ft, riveting 
by which the runner is attached to the heel- and sole-plates ; e, f, 
clamps which grasp the sole when they are drawn rearward by the 
action of the curved slots/" upon pins fixed firmly in the sole-plate. 
Both these clamps are pivoted at their rear extremities to a bar g, 
connected by a winged adjusting-screw A to a collar f", which is pivot- 
ed to the heel-clamp// A, spur which engages the front part of the 
heel when the heel-clamp is drawn forward ; /, toggle-lever, by which 
the sole-clamps are drawn rearward and the heel-clamp forward sim- 
ultaneously. In B this lever is shown turned out ; to clamp the skate 
to the shoe, it is pressed inward under the sole out of sight. C is a 
roller-skate, in which a plate with rollers replaces the runner. 
either to a wooden sole provided with straps 
and buckles, or to a light iron or steel frame- 
work having adjustable clamps or other means 
of attachment to a shoe or boot. See roller- 
skate. 
To my Lord Sandwich's, to Mr. Moore ; and then over 
the Parke, where I first in my life, it being a great frost, 
did see people sliding with their skeates, which is a very 
pretty art. Pepye, Diary, Dec. 1, 1662. 
The Canal and Rosamond's Pond full of the rabble slid- 
ing, and with skates, if you know what those are. 
Swift, Journal to Stella, Jan. 31, 1711. 
skate 2 (skat), v. i. ; pret. and pp. skated, ppr. 
skating. [< skate 2 , n.] To glide over ice and 
snow on skates. 
Edwin Morris, . . . 
Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim. 
Tennyson, Edwin Morris. 
skate-barrow (skat'bar*6), . The peculiar 
egg-case of a skate, ray, or other batoid fish, 
resembling a hand-barrow in shape; a sea- 
purse ; a mermaid's-purse. See cut under mer- 
maid's-ptirse. 
skater (ska'ter), M. [< skate? + -!.] 1. One 
who skates. 
Careful of my motion, 
Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him. 
Tennyson, Exper. in Quantity, Hendecasyllahics. 
2. One of many different aquatic heteropterous 
insects with long legs which glide over the sur- 
face of water as if skating, as Gerridx or Hy- 
drobatidx, etc. 
skate-sucker (skat'suk"er), re. Same as sea- 
leech. 
skating (ska'ting), . [Verbal n. of skate 2 , ?.] 
The exercise or art of moving on skates. 
I cannot by any means ascertain at what time skating 
made its first appearance in England, but we find some 
traces of such an exercise in the thirteenth century. 
Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, p. 153. 
skating-rink (ska'ting-ringk), n. See rink 2 . 
356 
Skeans. From specimens in the Museum of the Royal Irish 
Academy, Dublin. 
of bronze, double-edged, and more or less leaf- 
shaped, and thus distinguished from the differ- 
ent forms of the seax, or broad-backed knife. 
Duryng this siege arrived at Harflew the Lord of Kyl- 
maine in Ireland, with a band of xvj. hundreth Iryshmen, 
armed in mayle with dartes and skaynes, after the maner 
of their countrey. Hall, Henry V., f. 28. (Hallimll.) 
The fraudulent Saxons under their long Cassocks had 
short Skeynes hidden, with which, upon a Watchword 
given, they set upon the Britains, and of their unarm'd 
Nobility slew three, some say flve hundred. 
Baker, Chronicles, p. 4. 
skean-dhu (sken'do), n. [< Gael, sgian dubh, 
black knife : sgian, knife (see skean 2 ) ; dubh, 
black.] A knife used by the Scottish High- 
landers; the knife which, when the Highland 
costume is worn, is stuck in the stocking. 
Young Durward . . . drew from his pouch that most 
necessary implement of a Highlander or woodsman, the 
trusty skene dhu, and . . . cut the rope asunder. 
Scott, Quentin Durward, vi. 
skeart, p. a. A dialectal form of scared, past 
participle of scare 1 . 
skeary, skeery (sker'i), a. A dialectal form of 
scary*. 
It is not to be marveled at that amidst such a place as 
this, for the first time visited, the horses were a little 
skeary. It. D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone, lix. 
skeatest, . pi- See skate 2 . 
skedaddle (ske-dad'l), v. ; pret. and pp. ske- 
daddled, ppr. skedaddling. [Of obscure provin- 
cial origin. It has been variously referred to a 
Scand. source, to Celtic, and even to Gr. o-ice- 
iawi'vat, scatter; but the word is obviously of 
a free and popular type, with a freq. termina- 
tion -le ; it may have been based on the earlier 
form of shed 1 (AS. sceadan), pour, etc. : see 
shed l .~\ I. trans. To spill; scatter. [Prov. Eng. 
and Scotch.] 
Skee. 
a, profile view ; b, view from above. 
toward the ends, an inch wider than the shoe 
of the user, and turned up in a curve at the 
front. Skees are secured, one to each foot, in such a way 
as to be easily cast off in case of accident, and are used 
for sliding down a declivity or as a substitute for snow- 
shoes. 
Ski, then, as will have been already gathered, are long 
narrow strips of wood, those used in Norway being from 
three to four inches in breadth, eight feet more or less in 
length, one inch in thickness at the centre under the foot, 
and bevelling off to about a quarter of an inch at either 
end. In front they are curved upwards and pointed, and 
they are sometimes a little turned up at the back end too. 
Nansen, First Crossing of Greenland, I. 75. 
skee (ske), v. i. [< skee, .] To slide on skees. 
skeed (sked), . Same as skid 1 . 
skeel (skel), n. [Also (So.) skeil, skeill, earlv 
mod. E. also skeele, skaill, skill, skell; < ME\ 
skele, < Icel. skjola, a pail, bucket.] 1. A shal- 
low wooden vessel. 
Humes berande the the bredes vpon brode skeles, 
That were of sylueren sygt & seerved ther-wyth. 
Alliterative Poems (ed. Morris), ii. 1405. 
2. A shallow wooden vessel used for holding 
milk; also, a milking-pail. 
Skeels are broad shallow vessels, principally for the 
use of setting milk in, to stand for cream ; made in the 
tub manner from eighteen inches to two feet and a half 
diameter ; and from flve to seven inches deep. 
Marshall, Rural Economy, p. 269, (Jamieson.) 
The Yorkshire skeel with one handle is described as a 
milking pail. 
Marshall, Rural Economy, p. 26. (Jamieson.) 
3. A tub used in washing. 
[Prov. Eng. or Scotch in all uses.] 
skeelduck (skel'duk), n. Same as shelduck, 
sheldrake. [Scotch.] 
skeelgoose (skel'gos), n. Same as shelduck, 
sheldrake. [Scotch.] 
skeeling (ske'ling), . [An unassibilated vari- 
ant of shealingl.] 1. Ashed; an outhouse; a 
shealing. [Prov. Eng.] 2. The inner part of 
a barn or garret where the slope of the roof 
comes. Halliicell. [Prov. Eng.] 
skeely 1 (ske'li), a. [<skeeP+-yl.] Skilful; in- 
telligent; experienced. [Scotch.] 
O whare will I get a skeely skipper 
To sail this new ship of mine? 
Sir Patrick Spew (Child's Ballads, III. 152). 
She was a kind woman, and seemed skeely about horned 
beasts. Scott, Heart of Mid-Lothian, xxviii. 
skeely 2 (ske'li), v. i. Same as sl-elly 1 . 
skeen (sken). Another spelling of skean 2 , squean. 
skeer (sker), r. and . A dialectal form of 
scare^. 
skee-race (ske'ras), 11. A race upon skees. 
Properly speaking, a skee-race is not a race not a test 
of speed, but a test of skill. 
H. H. Boyesen, in St. Nicholas, X. 310. 
skeer-devil (sker'dev"! ), n. The swift, Cypsehis 
ajnis: so called from its skimming flight. Also 
