different between skittish vs uneven
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
- skittish what does it means
- what does skittish dog mean
- what does skittish mean
- what does skittish
- what does skittish cat mean
- what do skittish mean
- what is skittish behaviour
uneven
English
Etymology
From Middle English uneven, from Old English unefen (“unequal, unlike, dissimilar, diverse, irregular”), equivalent to un- +? even. Cognate with Dutch oneven (“unequal, uneven, odd”), German uneben (“uneven, rough, irregular, bumpy”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /?n?iv?n/
- Rhymes: -i?v?n
Adjective
uneven (comparative more uneven, superlative most uneven)
- Not even
- Not level or smooth
- Not uniform
- Varying in quality
- (mathematics, rare) Odd
- Antonym: even
Synonyms
- rough
Derived terms
- unevenly
- unevenness
Translations
See also
- irregular
- unequal
Verb
uneven (third-person singular simple present unevens, present participle unevening, simple past and past participle unevened)
- (transitive) To make uneven.
- 1993, Travel Holiday (volume 176, page 56)
- Initially it nestled among the dozens of Indian mounds that unevened the earth near the river until they were leveled to accommodate commerce.
- 2006, Jack Temple Kirby, Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes of the South (page 128)
- First, of course, the war reduced the white male, mostly young adult, population by more than a quarter-million, unevening the sex ratio and connubial and other opportunities for women for perhaps a generation.
- 1993, Travel Holiday (volume 176, page 56)
uneven From the web:
- what uneventful means
- what uneven skin tone means
- what's uneven skin tone
- what's uneven development
- what's uneven skin texture
- what uneven heating
- unevenly meaning
- uneven road meaning
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