Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In a skittish manner; restively; shyly; changeably.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb In a skittish manner.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb in a skittish manner

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

skittish +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • The blaze-faced chestnut was sensitive to the change in mood and began acting up, breaking stride and dancing skittishly around a turn.

    Western Man Janet Dailey 2011

  • The blaze-faced chestnut was sensitive to the change in mood and began acting up, breaking stride and dancing skittishly around a turn.

    Western Man Janet Dailey 2011

  • Gillian Keith fizzed skittishly and effortlessly as Zerbinetta, an acidulous sop to Orla Boylan's munificent, creamy but variably toned Ariadne.

    The Turn of the Screw; Ariadne auf Naxos; Les pêcheurs de perles; Mitsuko Uchida Fiona Maddocks 2010

  • Backstage, Trump has a case of nerves, skittishly pacing and shaking his legs to the beat.

    FLY FISHING WITH DARTH VADER MATT LABASH 2010

  • All of the regional actors now alter their calculus a bit, but none more obviously and skittishly than Karzai because he is really the one whose neck is in the noose.

    US Withdrawal from Iraq Looms Over Afghan War 2010

  • She took long breaks for costume changes and behaved skittishly, giving her backing singers a disproportionate amount of vocals.

    Whitney Houston 2010

  • I remember skittishly taking refuge in my own amused mother's lap the night before I moved far from home for my first real job.

    Fly Where I Can't Hold You 2010

  • Rose looked at Kylie, who glanced around her skittishly, all the spark gone from her eyes.

    When Rose Wakes Christopher Golden 2010

  • I remember skittishly taking refuge in my own amused mother's lap the night before I moved far from home for my first real job.

    Molly Magid Hoagland: Fly Where I Can't Hold You 2010

  • All of the regional actors now alter their calculus a bit, but none more obviously and skittishly than Karzai because he is really the one whose neck is in the noose.

    US Withdrawal from Iraq Looms Over Afghan War 2010

Comments

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  • ...when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions.

    - Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 63

    July 26, 2008