skedaddle

verb

ske·​dad·​dle ski-ˈda-dᵊl 

skedaddled; skedaddling ski-ˈda-dᵊl-iŋ 

-ˈdad-liŋ

; skedaddles

intransitive verb

: to leave immediately : run away, scram

I've got to skedaddle or I'll be late.

Whenever there was work to be done, he skedaddled.

… of the five hundred and sixteen thousand immigrants who had come to Quebec since 1969 some three hundred and twelve thousand took a good look around and skedaddled.

—Mordecai Richler

… Vietnam, a country that has been virtually closed to foreigners since the last American helicopter skedaddled from the embassy rooftop in 1975.

—Stephen O'Shea

especially : to flee in a panic

Little gray lizards skedaddle from our path.

—Wells Tower

Though penguins can't outrun a lion, they can skedaddle on land if they really need to.

—Diane Ackerman

… they took their money and skedaddled as the housing market collapsed.

—Bill Saporito

skedaddler

ski-ˈda-dᵊl-ər 

-ˈdad-lər

noun

plural skedaddlers

… soldiers running from their units—and civilians running to avoid becoming part of one—were dubbed skedaddlers.

—John Boyko

Synonyms of skedaddle

• flee
• retreat
• fly
• bolt
• run
• escape

Examples of skedaddle in a Sentence

I've got to skedaddle or I'll be late.

we skedaddled as soon as we saw the snake entering our campsite

Recent Examples on the Web

Usually when an actor in a major role skedaddles a series in mid-stream — because of firings, feuds, contract fights, health crises or creative flameouts — the show finds a way to go on. — Benjamin Svetkey, HollywoodReporter, 23 May 2026

There’s good reason to skedaddle too since more than rest and mending are going on inside and out. — Randy Myers, Mercury News, 18 Feb. 2026

Many politicians with ambitions for higher office arrive at events, are introduced, wave, shake a few hands and skedaddled to the next block on the schedule. — Kevin Rennie, Hartford Courant, 19 July 2025

But not on this episode, because Abby and the gang were already skedaddling back to Seattle. — Tom Gliatto, People.com, 21 Apr. 2025

The Nazis took the bait, hook, line and sinker, and skedaddled to Sardinia, smoothing the way for the Allies to take Sicily, a major turning point in World War II. — Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, 21 Mar. 2025

The Nazis took the bait, hook, line and sinker, and skedaddled to Sardinia, smoothing the way for the Allies to take Sicily and marking a major turning point in World War II. — Chris Jones, New York Daily News, 21 Mar. 2025

The sun's peeping out, and the budding journalists skedaddle outside, where their friends are just arriving. — Lauren Migaki, NPR, 22 Feb. 2025

Word History

Etymology

perhaps extended form of British dialect (Nottinghamshire) scaddle "to run off in a fright," derivative of dialectal scaddle, adjective, "wild, timid, skittish," going back to Middle English scathel, skadylle "harmful, fierce, wild," borrowed from Old Norse *skǫþull "harmful," going back to Germanic *skaþulo- (whence also Old High German scadel "bad, wicked," Gothic skaþuls* "harmful, hurtful"), from *skaþjan- "to harm" + -ul-, deverbal adjective suffix — more at scathe entry 2

Note: The sudden appearance of this word in American English shortly before the beginning of the Civil War and its rapid spread across the Atlantic, as well as its uncertain etymology, gave rise to debate not long after its birth. Skedaddle perhaps surfaced earliest in the text of "A Western Yarn," an anecdote about a supposed "Hoosier" survivor of a steamboat explosion that circulated in a number of American newspapers beginning in December, 1849. In August, 1859, papers began replacing the word scatter in the last sentence of the anecdote ("You oughter see that gang scatter") with skedaddle. In 1861, usage of the word in the U.S. increased significantly. In October, 1862, a correspondent to the Times of London claimed that skedaddle was "a word commonly used in Dumfriesshire [Scotland], my native home. To skedaddle means to spill in small quantities any liquids." This is the only evidence for a Scots skedaddle cited in the Scottish National Dictionary, and other claims that the word is Scots may simply copy this one. Scots does have a well-attested verb skiddle meaning "to splash, spill," which is also reported by a writer in Yorkshire (see J. Hanson Green, "A Handful of Derivations," Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society, part VII, February, 1906, pp. 27-28), to whom skedaddle "is a well-known Lancashire and Northumbrian word of old standing, meaning there 'to spill' or 'to disperse.'" This skedaddle, assuming it was real, may have been derived from skiddle independently of the American skedaddle. It is a peculiarity that all the known reports of skedaddle in various parts of Britain were drawn out in response to the American verb—there is no independent record of a British skedaddle. A comprehensive history of attempts to etymologize the word is in Anatoly Liberman, An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction (Minneapolis, 2008), pp. 186-89.

First Known Use

1859, in the meaning defined above