skittish

Definition

Easily scared or startled; timid.

Etymology

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

Example Sentences

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

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