skite
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /skaɪt/
rhymes: -aɪt
Forms: form: skites
form: skiting
form: skited
form: skited
form: skyte
Etymology: From Middle English skyt, skytte, skytt, from Old Norse skítr (“dung, faeces”), from Proto-Germanic *skītaz, *skitiz. Cognate with Old English sċite (“dung”). Doublet of shit and shite.
Senses: examples: text: You boast and skite from morn to night / And think you're very brave, / But the men who really did the job / Are dead and in their graves.
ref: a. 1918, “The Ragtime Army” [World War I Australian Army song], cited in Graham Seal, “The Singing Soldiers”, in Inventing Anzac: The Digger and National Mythology (UQP Australian Studies), St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press in association with the API Network, Australia Research Institute, Curtin University of Technology, 2004, ISBN 978-0-7022-3447-7, page 53
text: He still had bumfluff on his cheeks, he was that young. About once a month he used to shave it off, and come skiting about it. I smiled at the memory of him all lathered up, grinning at me through the mirror as he went to work on the bumfluff.
ref: 1983, John Carroll, Token Soldiers, Boronia, Vic.: Wildgrass Books, →ISBN, page 247:
text: That Smasher, he said, and forced laugh. My word he can spin a yarn! She glanced towards him, her face halved by the lamplight. Just skiting, you reckon?
ref: 2005, Kate Grenville, The Secret River, Melbourne, Vic.: Text Publishing, →ISBN, page 159:
text: "England is mine," Henry says over a pint[…]. "I hope that's not skiting." / "That's not skiting, sport. Edward Garnett reckons you're the best new thing in the Empire, and so do I. Good on you, mate, nothing on earth can stop you now! Here's mud in your eye."
ref: 2006, Pip Wilson, Faces in the Street: Louisa and Henry Lawson and the Castlereagh Street Push, 2nd edition, Coffs Harbour, N.S.W.: Pip Wilson, →ISBN, page 405:
text: Without wishing to skite, the only other accurate prediction on 2015 was penned here by your columnist last January when we accurately forecast that all the forecasts would be inaccurate.
ref: 2016 January 4, Ian Verrender, “The crystal ball gazers got it all wrong in 2015 – don't expect better this year”, in Australian Broadcasting Corporation, archived from the original on 20 Jun 2016:
glosses: To boast.
examples: text: […] skiting down that steep slope. But it's one thing to slide down a steep slope and quite another thing to climb back up - as Mary Jane soon discovered. Try her hardest , she simply could not get up that hill; she slid down faster than she went up.
ref: 2022(?), Clara Ingram Judson, Mary Jane at School
text: […] of rock shearing off and skiting down the cliff-face as a black guillotine blade.
ref: 2024, Jen Hadfield, Storm Pegs: A Life Made in Shetland:
glosses: To skim or slide along a surface.
examples: text: At this point I skited on a discarded banana and decided to use my eyes instead of my brains.
ref: 1929, John Joy Bell, Meet Mr. Craw, page 25:
text: ... skited on a particularly hazardous weet bit o' the harbour and fell flat in […]
ref: 1993, New Writing Scotland:
text: ... skited on the way and nearly took a tumble. Inside there's a fire, but the room's that big there's lacings of frost on all the windows. Forty beds reeking and heaving; devils dancing about and between. Devils waiting for souls[…]
ref: 1997, Flamingo Book of New Scottish Writing:
text: ... skited on the slippery floor.
ref: 2011 March 22, Ian Rankin, The Black Book: An Inspector Rebus Mystery, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:
text: ... rain-soaked stone stairs, her boots skiting on the slick surface.
ref: 2024 February 6, Rowan MacKay, Wreathed in Tide & Torment, Wickentree Press, →ISBN:
glosses: To slip, such as on ice.
examples: text: His very shuttle skytes boldly along, and clatters through in faithful time to the tune of his merrier shopmates!
ref: 1880, William Thom, Rhymes and recollections of a hand-loom weaver. ed., with a biogr. sketch, by W. Skinner, page 8:
text: ... flashy blades gae skytin' by, […]
ref: 1889, Malcolm M'Lachlan Harper, The Bards of Galloway: A Collection of Poems, Songs, Ballads, &c., by Natives of Galloway, page 98:
text: ... he wasn't fit to be thravellin' the len'th of the ward, that indifferent he was, let alone skytin' over the ocean-says.
ref: 1898, Jane Barlow, Irish Idylls, page 69:
text: 'If ye'd rather, laddie, the dog will bring ye home,' […] 'Skite!' said Dick, with sullen scorn; but he went quietly after that.
ref: 2022 September 16 [1901], Edward Dyson, The Gold-Stealers: A Story of Waddy, DigiCat:
glosses: To move swiftly; to move in leaps and bounds.
examples: text: […] skiting over to Europe and back before you know it, taking notes on the way going and coming .
ref: 1925, The Lariat, volumes 5-6, page 351:
text: ... skiting over to Hartford City and back in a day. I don't suppose we could hear all of it, but we heard most of it. We turned the corner on Madison Street, came up Washington, got to the front of the house, and Grandfather stopped the[…]
ref: 1956, Samuel Berder Rapport, Patricia Schartle, America Remembers; Our Best-loved Customs and Traditions:
text: ... skited over with empty suitcases for a shopping trip just before Christmas.
ref: 2019 January 15, Claudia Carroll, Do You Want to Know a Secret?, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:
glosses: To pop, to quickly or briefly make a trip to.
glosses: To drink a large amount of alcohol.
examples: text: There is no need of wiping ones taile (said Gargantua), but when it is foule; foule it cannot be unlesse one have been a skiting; skite then we must before we wipe our tailes.
ref: 1653, François Rabelais; Thomas Urquhart, transl., “How Gargantua's Wonderful Understanding Became Known to His Father Grangousier, by the Invention of a Torchecul or Wipebreech”, in The First Book of the Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, […], London: Printed [by Thomas Ratcliffe and Edward Mottershead] for Richard Baddeley, within the middle Temple-gate, OCLC 606994702; republished as The Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, […], volume I, London: Privately printed for the Navarre Society Limited, 23 New Oxford Street, W.C., [1921], OCLC 39370427, page 45
glosses: To defecate, to shit.
Derived terms: skite-the-gutter