skedaddle
verb

- to leave hastily, to flee, to run away in a hurry

- to run away quickly

- to hasten away from something dangerous or frightening

Oxford Languages, Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary;

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WORD ORIGIN

"Skedaddle" first appeared around the beginning of the American Civil War and was used to describe soldiers and traitors fleeing the battlefield.

The English Dialect Dictionary, a late 19th century publication, says that skedaddle stems from a Scottish or Northern English dialect word meaning to spill or scatter, such as milk. This may be from the Scottish word skiddle, meaning to splash water about or spill.

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GONE WITHOUT A TRACE

The word skedaddle, with its playful sound, belies a serious survival instinct that's deeply ingrained in our psyche. The act of "skedaddling" - or hastily fleeing from danger - is a time-honoured response that's saved countless lives throughout history. They who skedaddle and run away, live to skedaddle another day!

Skedaddling isn’t always about physical flight though. In our digital age, the phenomenon of "ghosting”, is the modern-day equivalent of disappearing without a trace in the digital realm. While technology might have made skedaddling easier, it has also raised questions about ethics, etiquette, and emotional consequences.

Ghosting is probably best not taken personally,… it says more about the ghoster than it does about us.

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SYNONYMS

beat it, blow, bolt, clear out, cut out, dash (off), decamp, fly, fly the coop, get out of here, head for the hills, hightail it, leave, make a swift exit, make haste, make oneself scarce, make tracks, run away, run off, scamper, scat, scatter, scram, scramble, scurry, scuttle, SKEDDADLE, split, take off, take to the woods, turn tail, vamoose

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a sentence, say something like:

"At the first sign of rain, I SKEDDADLED back to my car."

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THANKS to Heidi for suggesting today's word.

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