skedaddling

verb

present participle of skedaddle
as in retreating
to hasten away from something dangerous or frightening we skedaddled as soon as we saw the snake entering our campsite

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for skedaddling
  1. retreating
  2. fleeing
  3. flying
  4. bolting
  5. running
  6. escaping
Verb
  • James survived the shooting, but is shown retreating back to his car while losing blood.
    — Matt Lavietes, NBC news, 7 Aug. 2026
  • The outlet claimed that, while Beatrice was focused on supporting her family, Edo was retreating into his work.
    — Meredith Kile, PEOPLE, 7 Aug. 2026
Definition of retreating
Verb
  • An Aurora man accused of killing a female bicyclist in Hampshire with his pickup truck and then fleeing the scene has been charged with felony failure to report a crash resulting in a death, officials said.
    — Elgin Courier-News, Chicago Tribune, 12 Aug. 2026
  • Key Background Reiner was accused of fatally stabbing his parents at their home in December and was arrested that same day after fleeing.
    — Antonio Pequeño IV, Forbes.com, 12 Aug. 2026
Definition of fleeing
Verb
  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was on the other plane flying with the president, sources said.
    — Katherine Faulders, ABC News, 12 Aug. 2026
  • Patrick Gotwalt was a passenger on the flight and recorded a video showing flames coming from the engine as the flight appears to be flying over water.
    — Amanda Jackson, CNN Money, 11 Aug. 2026
Definition of flying
Verb
  • That work is arguably getting harder as chief executives stay in the job longer, causing their possible successors to get restless; some are bolting to jobs elsewhere or retiring themselves.
    — Phil Wahba, Fortune, 7 Aug. 2026
  • To save the cost and effort of pumping millions of liters of seawater solely to obtain minerals, the researchers propose bolting modular reactors onto coastal desalination plants, which already move enormous quantities of the stuff.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 27 July 2026
Definition of bolting
Verb
  • Maher Assad was a former commander of the Syrian military’s 4th Armored Division - which Syrian opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, in addition to running its own detention centers.
    — CNN Money, CNN Money, 11 Aug. 2026
  • This strategic move aims to provide enterprises with a unified solution for finding, running, authorizing, and auditing AI agent tools, crucial for production deployments.
    — Janakiram MSV, Forbes.com, 11 Aug. 2026
Definition of running
Verb
  • NurPhoto via Getty Images Anthropic has quietly joined the frontier labs designing their own chips, a shift driven less by escaping Nvidia than by the arithmetic of serving billions of tokens a day.
    — Jon Markman, Forbes.com, 6 Aug. 2026
  • The alcohol-burning products were associated with 31 reports of flame jettings and flames escaping from the concrete container, resulting in 19 burn injuries.
    — Ruben Vives, Los Angeles Times, 6 Aug. 2026
Definition of escaping
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

skedaddles
skedaddling
skeletal
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Skedaddling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/skedaddling. Accessed 13 Aug. 2026.

Copy Citation
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of salvo

See Definitions and Examples »

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

A Who’s Who Regarding ‘Who’s’ and ‘Whose’

7 Pairs of Commonly Confused Words

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

Words from the 'Odyssey'

The Longest Long Words List

It's a Scorcher! Words for the Summer Heat

The Words of the Week - Aug. 14

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

A Who’s Who Regarding ‘Who’s’ and ‘Whose’

Words from the 'Odyssey'

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
fridge-magnet-letters
Drop a Letter Quiz August 2026 Drop a letter from a word to make a totally diffe...
See All