skate
/skeɪt/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun
Forms skates skating skated
- noun A runner or blade, usually of steel, with a frame shaped to fit the sole of a shoe, made to be fastened under the foot, and used for gliding on ice.
- noun The act of skateboarding “There's time for a quick skate before dinner.”
- noun The act of roller skating or ice skating “The boys had a skate every morning when the lake was frozen.”
- noun (rail transport, Philippines, chiefly Bicol) A makeshift handcar.
- verb To move along a surface (ice or ground) using skates.
- verb To skateboard.
- verb (skiing) To use the skating technique.
- verb (slang) To get away with something; to be acquitted of a crime for which one is manifestly guilty.
- verb To move smoothly and easily.
- adjective (skiing) Pertaining to the technique of skating.
- noun A fish of the family Rajidae in the superorder Batoidea (rays) which inhabit most seas. Skates generally have small heads with protruding muzzles, and wide fins attached to a flat body.
- noun A worn-out horse, a nag, a jade.
- proper noun (fandom slang) The ship of characters James "Sawyer" Ford and Kate Austen from the television series Lost.
Etymology
Back-formation from Dutch schaats, from Middle Dutch schāetse, from Old Northern French escache (“a stilt, trestle”) (compare French échasse and English scatch), from a Germanic language, perhaps Frankish *skakkjā (“stilt”, literally “thing that moves”), related to *skakan (“to shake, swing”).
From Middle English skat, scate (also schat), from Old Norse skata (“skate”). Cognate with Icelandic skata (“skate, ray”), Norwegian skate (“skate”).
Origin uncertain, but probably related to skite.
Blend of Sawyer + Kate.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A metallic runner with a frame shaped to fit the sole of a shoe, --made to be fastened under the foot, and used for moving rapidly on ice. Batavia rushes forth; and as they sweep, On sounding skates, a thousand different ways, In circling poise, swift as the winds, along, The then gay land is maddended all to joy. Thomson.
- verb To move on skates.
- noun Any one of numerous species of large, flat elasmobranch fishes of the genus Raia, having a long, slender tail, terminated by a small caudal fin. The pectoral fins, which are large and broad and united to the sides of the body and head, give a somewhat rhombic form to these fishes. The skin is more or less spinose.
Etymology [D. schaats. Cf. Scatches.]
Etymology [Icel. skata; cf. Prov. G. schatten, meer-schatten, L. squatus, squatina, and E. shad.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “skate”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details