different between skittish vs inconsistent

English

Etymology

Probably from skite (“to move lightly and hurriedly; to move suddenly, particularly in an oblique direction (Scotland, Northern England)”) +? -ish; compare skitter.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sk?t??/
• (T-flapping) IPA^(key): [?sk????]
• Hyphenation: skit?tish

Adjective

skittish (comparative more skittish, superlative most skittish)

1. Easily scared or startled; timid.

   The cat likes people he knows, but he is skittish around strangers.

   • 1557, Roger Edgeworth, Sermons Very Fruitfull, Godly, and Learned, London: Robert Caly, The fiftenth treatice or Sermon,^[1]

     All such be like a skittish starting horse, whiche coming ouer a bridge, wil start for a shadowe, or for a stone lying by him, and leapeth ouer on the other side into the water, & drowneth both horse and man.

2. Wanton; changeable; fickle
   • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene 3,^[2]

     How some men creep in skittish fortune’s hall,

     Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!

   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task, London: J. Johnson, Book 2, p. 69,^[3]

     […] ’Tis pitiful

     To court a grin, when you should wooe a soul;

     To break a jest, when pity would inspire

     Pathetic exhortation; and t’ address

     The skittish fancy with facetious tales,

     When sent with God’s commission to the heart.

3. Difficult to manage; tricky.
   • 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book 2, Chapter 15,^[4]

     For everybody’s family doctor was remarkably clever, and was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management and training of the most skittish or vicious diseases.

Synonyms

• (easily scared or startled): spookish, jumpy, skittery, skitterish, squirrelly

Derived terms

• skittishly
• skittishness

Translations

See also

• startle

English

Etymology

in- +? consistent

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??nk?n?s?st?nt/

Adjective

inconsistent (comparative more inconsistent, superlative most inconsistent)

1. Not consistent:

   Antonym: consistent

   1. Not compatible (with another thing); incompatible, discrepant, at odds.

      His account of the evening was inconsistent with the security-camera footage.

   2. Lacking internal consistency; self-contradicting; not compatible with itself.

      He gave an inconsistent account of the evening, saying he called her before eight, but later that he had not talked to her until after nine.

      • 1862, The Christian Reformer (ed. Robert Aspland):

        He was one of those men of inconsistent politics, governed at once by prejudice and sympathies, whose 'attitude' it is impossible to foretell.

   3. Not consistent or coherent in thought or behavior.
      • 1848, The Columbian Magazine, volume 9, page 88:

        “Take him for better or worse,” added Mr. Lee, “and I think he is the strangest and most inconsistent man I ever saw.”

        “Inconsistent!” resumed Mr. Jones. “He is worse than inconsistent. Inconsistencies may be pardoned as constitutional defects [...]”

   4. (logic) Having the property that a contradiction can be derived.

Derived terms

• inconsistently

Related terms

• inconsistency

Translations

Anagrams

• nonscientist

Catalan

Etymology

in- +? consistent

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Valencian) IPA^(key): /i?.kon.sis?tent/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /i?.kun.sis?ten/

Adjective

inconsistent (masculine and feminine plural inconsistents)

1. inconsistent

   Antonym: consistent

Related terms

• inconsistència

Further reading

• “inconsistent” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “inconsistent” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “inconsistent” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “inconsistent” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Romanian

Etymology

From French inconsistant

Adjective

inconsistent m or n (feminine singular inconsistent?, masculine plural inconsisten?i, feminine and neuter plural inconsistente)

1. inconsistent

Declension