different between hotfoot vs skedaddle

English

Etymology

From Middle English hot-fot, hot fot, equivalent to hot +? foot.

Noun

hotfoot (plural hotfoots)

1. (US) The prank of secretly inserting a match between the sole and upper of a victim's shoe and then lighting it.

Adjective

hotfoot

1. Moving with haste or zeal.
   • 1938, Elwyn Brooks White, The Fox of Peapack, and Other Poems (page 137)

     Half the populace are idle, / Half are busy in a room; / All are gravebound from the cradle, / All are hotfoot for their doom.

Adverb

hotfoot

1. (Britain) hastily; without delay.

Translations

Verb

hotfoot (third-person singular simple present hotfoots, present participle hotfooting, simple past and past participle hotfooted)

1. (transitive) To run (a distance).
   • 2007, R.C. Harvey, Meanwhile...

     He hotfooted the four-and-a-half blocks across town to the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and checked out the books Patterson had mentioned—and everything else about China he could quickly think of.

   • 2010, Eric Hammel, Coral and Blood: The U.S. Marine Corps’ Pacific Campaign (page 55)

     The Ford was shot up heavily, so Larkin hotfooted the last mile to Ewa. Once there, he took cover beneath a truck as unchallenged Zeros strafed the neatly parked MAG-21 aircraft and the base facilities.

Derived terms

• hotfoot it
• hotfoot spell

Translations

Anagrams

• foothot

English

Etymology

19th century US - dramatically appearing and gaining prominence in Civil War military contexts around 1861, and rapidly passing into more general use. Possibly 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”), perhaps of North Germanic/Scandinavian origin, from Old Norse *sköþull; or from Old English *scaþol, *sceaþol (see scathel); akin to Old Norse skaði (“harm”).

Possibly related to the Ancient Greek ???????? (skédasis, “scattering”), ????????? (skedasmós, “dispersion”). Possibly related to scud or scat.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /sk??dæd?l/
• Rhymes: -æd?l

Verb

skedaddle (third-person singular simple present skedaddles, present participle skedaddling, simple past and past participle skedaddled)

1. (informal, intransitive, US) To move or run away quickly.
   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, pl. 122]:

     Then filled with inspiration he drove in his Buick, the busted muffler blasting in the country lanes and the great long car skedaddling dangerously on the curves. Lucky for the woodchucks they were already hibernating.
2. (transitive, regional) To spill; to scatter.

Synonyms

• (move or run away quickly): flee, vamoose, scat, take off, make tracks, get lost, kick rocks, hightail; see also Thesaurus:move quickly, Thesaurus:rush or Thesaurus:flee

Translations

Noun

skedaddle (plural skedaddles)

1. (informal) The act of running away; a scurrying off.

Translations

See also

• Appendix:Fanciful 19th century American coinages

References

• 1897, Hunter, Robert, and Charles Morris, editors, Universal Dictionary of the English Language, v4, p4291: "Etym. doubtful; perhaps allied to scud. To betake one's self hurriedly to flight; to run away as in a panic; to fly in terror. (A word of American origin.)"
• Michael Quinion (7 February 2004) , “Skedaddle”, in World Wide Words