skelly
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈskɛli/
Etymology 1
Probably of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse *skjelga ("to squint"; found only in the reflexive skjelgask (“to come askew; squint the eyes”)), from Proto-Germanic *skilgijaną (“to squint”), from Proto-Germanic *skelhaz, *skelhwaz, *skelgaz (“slanted; sloping; squinting”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kel- (“to bend; crook”). Compare Danish skele (“to squint”), Swedish skela (“to squint”), Scots skellie, scalie, skellice (“to squint; look to the side”), German schielen (“to squint”).
Noun
skelly (plural skellies)
- (UK, Scotland, dialect) A squint.
Verb
skelly (third-person singular simple present skellies, present participle skellying, simple past and past participle skellied)
- (Britain, Scotland, dialectal) To squint.
- 1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter IV, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume II (Old Mortality), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], OCLC 230697985, page 87:
- "It is he—it is the very man," said Bothwell, "skellies fearfully with one eye?"
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Etymology 2
From a clipping of skeleton + -y (diminutive suffix).
Noun
skelly (plural skellies)
- (slang) A skeleton, especially a human one.
- We went spelunking in some caves and got quite the scare when we found some skellies in there.
Etymology 3
Variant of skully.
Noun
skelly (uncountable)
- Alternative form of skully (“street game of flicking caps”)
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for skelly in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)