different between skittish vs uncertain
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:
- what skittish means
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- what does skittish dog mean
- what does skittish mean
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uncertain
English
Etymology
un- +? certain
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /?n?s??t?n/
- Rhymes: -??(r)t?n
Adjective
uncertain (comparative more uncertain, superlative most uncertain)
- Not certain; unsure.
- 1663, John Tillotson, The Wisdom of being Religious
- Man, without the protection of a superior Being, […] is […] uncertain of everything that he hopes for.
- 1663, John Tillotson, The Wisdom of being Religious
- Not known for certain; questionable.
- Not yet determined; undecided.
- Variable and subject to change.
- Fitful or unsteady.
- Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
- Unpredictable or capricious.
Antonyms
- certain
Related terms
- uncertainly, uncertainty
Translations
Noun
uncertain pl (plural only)
- (with "the") Something uncertain.
Anagrams
- N Centauri, centaurin, encurtain, runcinate
uncertain From the web:
- what uncertain means
- what uncertainties existed in germany in the 1920s
- what uncertainty means
- what uncertainties do we need
- what uncertainties are involved with the oscillation method
- what uncertainty is represented by the following measurements
- what uncertainty does to the brain
- what uncertainty
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