Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Variant of skullduggery.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. See skulduddery.
Wiktionary
- n. A devious device or trick.
- n. Underhanded or unscrupulous behavior.
WordNet 3.0
- n. verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way
Etymologies
- 1856, apparently an alteration of Scottish English sculdudrie ("adultery"), sculduddery “bawdry, obscenity”, a euphemism of uncertain origin (Wiktionary)
Examples
“My cohort in skulduggery Jesse just (and when I say just I mean four or five days ago) posted a nice blurb on the strange and stupid phenomenon of using “gay” as an adjective to describe things other than a person who is a homosexual.”
“A side story of skulduggery is more dramatic still, if potentially litigious: as Lahey tells it, a former distributor of Sullivan St breads hired former Sullivan St bakers to start his own bakery, opened suddenly with an extremely similar product line, and started making deliveries to Sullivan St customers with no notice of a change of vendor — initially in stockpiled bags with the Sullivan St name and logo, yet.”
“Picasso's "Guernica," while the warthog's kin, the babirusa, gives new meaning to the word skulduggery: On occasion, one of its two pairs of curving tusks will grow up and around and pierce right into its skull.”
“More title skulduggery - when I wrote the high-fantasy duology that would become, in the United States, "The Hidden Queen" and "Changer of Days" - well - that book was originally written as ONE BOOK, and that one book's name was "Changer of Days".”
“Gounden said he and Radebe prided themselves on not being involved in any "skulduggery", and took the allegations made in the”
“More title skulduggery - when I wrote the high-fantasy duology that would become, in the United States, “The Hidden Queen” and “Changer of Days” - well - that book was originally written as ONE BOOK, and that one book’s name was “Changer of Days”.”
“But alleged "skulduggery" in the funeral business may be partly to blame for LifeArt's shaky grip on life.”
“Can they really be such slow learners that they haven't figured out how angry the voters anout that kind of skulduggery?”
“The vote has already seeb a damaging row, with the Government accused of "skulduggery" over the process to replace Michael Martin.”
Telegraph.co.uk: news business sport the Daily Telegraph newspaper Sunday Telegraph
“This is the kind of skulduggery that we hope fervently will be quashed under the next presidential administration.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘skulduggery’.
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Muse's tacet ,to learn
Music brings silence's to raging thoughts and temperament , calm, as it is our object of definite purpose.
tacet, cadence, tempo, treble clef, penultimate, lexicon, origin, orchestra, kantele, magus, eros, coalesce and 248 more...
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Nincompoopery
Words that clatter and tumble
nincompoop, pettyfoggery, gaberlunzie, cattywampus, weisenheimer, katzenjammer, hecklephone, loblolly, carriwitchet, flibbertyjibbet, hornswoggle, thimblerigger and 161 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Steampunk
Words used quite often in steampunk
ansible, airship, chymical, valve, clockwork, dirigible, thaumaturgy, copper, bronze, difference engine, gear, rivets and 516 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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Lying, cheating, and stealing
subterfuge, chicanery, skulduggery, pilfer, purloin, bamboozle, bilk, gyp, hoodwink, swindle, hoax, dupe and 28 more...
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Exquisite Words
Words that need no description other than their own exquisiteness, either in sound or meaning.
effluvia, petrichor, velvet, leather, crepuscular, sillage, psithurism, strikhedonia, tibialoconcupiscent, tarantism, daduchos, umbrage and 14 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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words/phrases I wish I could find mor...
puttin' on the dog, smarty, smarty ha..., murgatroyd, treshstra, puissance, corpuscle, socker kaka, peckish, hullabaloo, salvo, holy guacamole, b..., cascade and 112 more...
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inkhorn's Words
inkhorn, aplomb, apotheosis, asinine, avatar, bombastic, boorish, bromide, bucolic, cagey, canvass, digress and 991 more...
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cxfx's list
callipygous, scaphism, ubermorgen, handschuhschneeba..., farctate, autohagiography, autolatry, spindrift, feculent, verisimilitude, brobdingnagian, ineluctable and 205 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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Tunie: Word Disassociation
(I'm fairly sure that I'm subverting the whole concept of the Tunie by listing this song. Subversion! Yes! HA HA HA HA! Mine is an evil laugh!!!)
Word Disassociation
antidisestablishm..., quickly, ruby, bionic, about, crouch, a cappella, imposter, flames, distraction, murderous, over and 181 more...
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kimo2000's Words
pakalolo, miliated, voodoo, vindaloo, hacienda, acquiesce, addlepated, olio, akimbo, apropos, oogenesis, arugula and 181 more...
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dann's words
just some nice words that i like.
beamish, snark, sundry, contrariwise, salsify, cephalopod, omphaloskepsis, grok, resistentialism, peristerophobia, aglet, ferrule and 125 more...
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Words
Words I like.
jejune, eunoia, swallow, spelunk, milquetoast, echolalia, trumble, toothsome, synecdoche, taciturn, kerfuffle, aleatoric and 98 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for skulduggery.
Noelle Knight "There was something about this that Christine wanted me to see, to...Of course. She wanted me to use my talent here. She suspected...skulduggery."-Dead as a Doornail, by Charlaine Harris May 18, 2011
yarb "Here, here, what sort of skulduggery is going on in my woods?" roared the King, suddenly confronting Sebastian.
- William Steig, Roland the Minstrel Pig Sep 29, 2008
Prolagus Skulduggery has nothing to do with skulls or digging, but developed as an Americanism in the nineteenth century, apparently as a variation on Scottish skulduddery, meaning fornication or obscenity. The American adaptation softened the meaning to trickery or craftiness.
(What's in a Word? by Robert Gorrell) Aug 5, 2008