skittish
adjective

- lively or frisky in action

- (of people and animals) nervous or easily frightened

- undependably variable; mercurial or fickle

Merriam-Webster / Cambridge Dictionary / American Heritage Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

“Skittish” appeared in English in the early 15th century, probably from the Old Norse verb skjóta meaning "to shoot, dart, move quickly", related to the verb "to shoot".

Another theory traces it to the Scots/Northern English verb skite meaning "to move lightly and hurriedly; to move suddenly, particularly in an oblique direction" — this gave rise to the verb "skitter" meaning “to move in a jittery, jerky, or twitching manner”.

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SKITTISH HORSE ACCIDENT

On October 24, 1937, Cole Porter went out for a horseback ride at the Piping Rock Club, in Locust Valley, Long Island—one of those swank playgrounds whose names he liked to rhyme in song and which signalled his fully paid-up membership in the Elegantsia. In the woods, the skittish horse, which the forty-six-year-old Porter had been warned against riding, shied and fell on him, crushing both his legs.

According to Porter—a story that William McBrien, the author of 'Cole Porter: A Biography' (1998), finds 'difficult to believe'—he passed the excruciating hours while he waited to be rescued composing the lyrics to an elusive verse of his song 'At Long Last Love.'

Cole Porter gave his lame legs names: the left he christened Josephine, the right Geraldine—"a hellion*, a bitch, a psychopath."

*hellion = a mischievous person, a troublemaker

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SYNONYMS

agitated, antsy, apprehensive, bundle of nerves, camera shy, deer in the headlights, disquieted, easily alarmed (rattled, ruffled, spooked, startled, thrown), edgy, fidgety, flighty, fraidy cat, frightened, gun-shy, hair-trigger, having the jitters (the shakes), highly strung, ill at ease, in a lather (a stew, perpetual panic), jittery, jumpy, lily-livered, nervous (wreck), on edge (tenterhooks), panicky, quaking, rattled, readily spooked, restive, scared witless, scaredy/scarey-cat, shivering mass of jelly, skittery, SKITTISH (as a colt), spooked, twitchy, unsettled, wincing

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