WTN:
James Harbeck
skedaddle
If there’s been sculduddery and you’re skittish, don’t dawdle – scat. Scatter. Skedaddle. Put departure on your schedule. It’s no time for beer and skittles – let’s get out of here! Scoot, kiddo! Scat, laddy! Scud, daddy-o!
Skedaddle is a particularly American-sounding word, isn’t it? It’s from the same folks who brought you absquatulate. Well, not the exact same folks; this one seems to have shown up first about a half a century later than absquatulate, during the American Civil War. The first hit that’s been found in print for it is from the New York Tribune in 1861: “No sooner did the traitors discover their approach than they ‘skiddaddled’, (a phrase the Union boys up here apply to the good use the seceshers make of their legs in time of danger).”
It caught on quickly enough, without need of a skilled tattler; fleeing was a popular activity at the time, and not just for soldiers but for others in the way: in 1862 we see a quote from the Illustrated London News, “I ‘skeedadled’ from the capital of the dis-United States.” It has that skidding, skittering sound, and a certain resemblance to some other words – scoot, scat, scatter, and an assortment of ones you may not have heard. Wiktionary reaches far and wide with an etymology by sound (which may or may not be sound etymology):
Possibly an alteration of British dialect scaddle (“to run off in a fright”), from the adjective scaddle (“wild, timid, skittish”), from Middle English scathel, skadylle (“harmful, fierce, wild”), perhaps of North Germanic/Scandinavian origin, from Old Norse *sköþull; or from Old English *scaþol, *sceaþol (see scathel); akin to Old Norse skaði (“harm”). Possibly related to the Ancient Greek σκέδασις (skédasis, “scattering”), σκεδασμός (skedasmós, “dispersion”). Possibly related to scud or scat. It is possibly a corruption of "Let's get outa here".
I am skeptical of the Greek links, but am open to the influence of “Let’s get outa here.” I am at least as interested in Wiktionary’s list of synonyms:
flee, vamoose, skitter, scat, skidoo, take off, make tracks, beat feet, kick rocks, get lost, hightail
The only thing I’ll add to all that is that to me, this word has a less-than-completely-serious sound, notwithstanding its belligerent origins. “We gotta skedaddle” is a thing you’ll say at the end of a party or when you risk being late for your bus; it’s perhaps not a thing you’ll say if a tiger is stalking you or gunfire is erupting suddenly in the restaurant where you’re dining – well, unless you’re trying to downplay the seriousness of the situation.
Which, I suspect, is partly why it caught on in the Civil War: its application to opposing soldiers has a certain mocking tone. But perhaps its frantic tone had more impact at the time – after all, unlike for me, it wouldn’t have been a word they were most used to hearing as kids from their Dad.
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