To leave in a hurry; to run away. American Civil War slang, spread by the newspapers in the summer of 1861.
What it really means
To skedaddle is to leave in a hurry, and it arrived in a hurry too.
The word broke out in the summer of 1861, in the first months of the American Civil War. Newspapers noticed soldiers using it for a hasty retreat — it was often spelled skadaddle — and spread it across the country within weeks. Etymonline also records an earlier trace, in 1859, in a piece imitating the speech of Indiana.
A war is an efficient engine for slang, and this is exactly the kind it produces: a word for running away that manages not to sound quite like cowardice. Retreated is a report. Skedaddled is a joke about it.
Where it came from is less settled than when. It used to be traced to Greek, and to Irish and Swedish. The etymologist Anatoly Liberman rejects all three and says it is not a blend either. His account is plainer: an enlargement of the English dialect word scaddle — to scare or frighten. Scared, and then gone.
It is one of the few words on this list that never actually went away. People still skedaddle; they just no longer know it was a soldier's word.
Where it comes from
Myths & misconceptions
Skedaddle comes from Greek.
The etymologist Anatoly Liberman says it has no connection with Greek, Irish or Swedish and is not a blend. He calls it an enlargement of the dialect word 'scaddle', to scare or frighten.
How it connects
- Lollygagits opposite — recorded the same decade, and just as American.
Questions people ask
- Where does skedaddle come from?
- It spread as American Civil War military slang in 1861, with an earlier trace in 1859. Its origin is unknown; the etymologist Anatoly Liberman links it to the dialect word 'scaddle', to scare.
- Is skedaddle Greek?
- No. That was an old theory; Liberman explicitly rejects any Greek, Irish or Swedish source.