skittish

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈskɪtɪʃ/
• (T-flapping) IPA^(key): [ˈskɪɾɪʃ]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪtɪʃ
• Hyphenation: skit‧tish

skittish (comparative more skittish, superlative most skittish)

1. Easily scared or startled; timid.

   The dog 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. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

     How some men creep in skittish fortune’s hall,
     Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!

   • 1785, William Cowper, “Book II. The Time-piece.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson;  […], →OCLC, page 69:

     […] ’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.
   • 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 15, in Middlemarch […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book (please specify |book=I to VIII):

     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.

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

• skittishly
• skittishness

• startle