different between skittish vs shrinking
skittish
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)
- 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.
- 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.
- c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene 3,[2]
- 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.
- 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book 2, Chapter 15,[4]
Synonyms
- (easily scared or startled): spookish, jumpy, skittery, skitterish, squirrelly
Derived terms
- skittishly
- skittishness
Translations
See also
- startle
skittish From the web:
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shrinking
English
Etymology
shrink +? -ing.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /?????k??/
- Hyphenation: shrink?ing
Verb
shrinking
- present participle of shrink
Noun
shrinking (plural shrinkings)
- The act of one who, or that which, shrinks; act of becoming smaller or moving timidly away.
- 1822, The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal (volume 6, page 10)
- […] the silent grief beyond the power of words—the generous consolations of the noble sister—the shrinkings of the poor criminal, and his relapsings into a gentler penitence […]
- 1822, The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal (volume 6, page 10)
shrinking From the web:
- what shrinkage means
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- what causes shrinking of the brain
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