▪ I. skittle, n.
(skɪt(ə)l)
Also 7 pl. skittolles, sketells (skyttals).
[Of uncertain origin: forms without initial s- (see kittle-pins) appear a little later in the 17th cent., whereas in the case of kayles and skayles the s- form is the later of the two.
Phonetically skittle answers exactly to the Scand. word represented by Da. and Sw. skyttel, occurring in the senses of ‘shuttle, child's marble, movable bar in a gateway’, but there is no evidence to connect this in any way with the game of skittles.]
1. a. pl. A game traditionally played with nine pins set in a square upon a wooden frame, an angle of which is directed towards the player, who endeavours to bowl down the pins in as few throws as possible; = nine-pins 1.
| 1634 in Footman Hist. Parish Ch. Chipping Lambourn (1894) 120 William Gyde..for playing at skittolles on Sunday. 1666 Wood Life (O.H.S.) II. 96 Dice, cards, sketells, shuffle-boords, billiard tables. 1748 Wesley Wks. (1872) II. 120, I was one day playing at skittles with some of these. 1773 A. Jones (title), The Art of Playing at Skittles; or the Laws of Nine-Pins displayed. 1807 Crabbe Par. Reg. i. 64 All the joys that ale and skittles give. 1865 Lubbock Preh. Times xiii. (1869) 443 The Feegeeans..have also a game resembling skittles. |
b. In the phrase
(not) all beer and skittles, or variants of this, used to denote that something is (not) unmixed enjoyment.
| 1837 Dickens Pickw. xli, It's a reg'lar holiday to them—all porter and skittles. 1857 T. Hughes Tom Brown's School Days i. ii. 46 Life isn't all beer and skittles. 1870 Mansfield School-life Winch. Coll. 138 But Football wasn't all beer and skittles to the Fags. 1897 ‘Ouida’ Massarenes v, Life isn't all skittles and swipes... You always seem to think it. 1931 A. Christie Sittaford Mystery xxvi. 211 ‘It's an experience, isn't it?’ ‘Teach him life can't be all beer and skittles,’ said Robert Gardner maliciously. 1963 D. Ogilvy Confessions Advert. Man (1964) i. 12 Managing an advertising agency isn't all beer and skittles. |
c. colloq. Nonsense; rubbish. Also used interjectionally.
| 1864 Orchestra 12 Nov. 104/1 Se faire applaudir is not ‘to make onesself applauded’, and ‘joyous comedian’ is simply skittles. 1886 Kipling Departm. Ditties (ed. 2) 43 ‘Where is your heat?’ says he, ‘Coming,’ says I to Pagett. ‘Skittles!’ says Pagett, M.P. 1904 F. T. Bullen Creatures of Sea xxiv. 354 [He told me] That they never ate and never rested because they had no feet, and other skittles of the kind. 1905 Author 1 Feb. 149 Mag. A man has..more self-restraint. Char. Skittles! That's the last thing he's got. |
d. colloq. Chess played without serious application.
| 1856 C. Tomlinson Chess Player's Ann. 61 Nor will our royal Game less royal sound, If shallow men play skittles on the ground, Where first-rate Chess sedately sits in state, And spends long hours accomplishing a mate. 1894 Daily News 30 May 3/6 There is, as every experienced chessist knows, all the difference in the world between what is known as off-hand play or ‘skittles’ and chess. 1940 Prins & Wood tr. Euwe's Meet Masters i. 14 Every game of chess, serious or ‘skittles’. |
2. One of the wooden pins with which this game is played.
Cf. nine-pins 2.
| 1680 Merry Milkmaid Islington i. B, To cleave you from the scull to the Twist, and make nine Skittles of thy bones. 1866 Chambers's Encycl. VIII. 758/1 The player..tries to knock down the whole of the skittles in a given number of throws. 1884 Knight Dict. Mech. Suppl. 820/2 A crucible taking the shape of a skittle. |
3. attrib. and
Comb. a. Attrib., in sense ‘used in, or for playing at, the game of skittles’, as
skittle-alley,
skittle-ball,
skittle-bowl,
skittle-frame,
skittle-ground,
skittle-pin.
| 1755 Connoisseur No. 68 ¶2 Every *skittle-alley half a mile out of town is embellished with green arbours and shady retreats. |
| 1822–7 Good Study Med. (1829) V. 319 The bronchocele had increased to the size of a *skittle-ball. |
| 1733 Tull Horse-Hoeing Husb. xxiii. (Dubl.) 378 A piece of Wood of the shape of a *Skittle-Bowl. |
| 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. Introd. §38 All the *skittle-frames in or about the city of London. |
| 1737 London Mag. Sept. 477/2 Such days would still be much better employed in that Way, than in sotting at an Ale-House, or loitering in a *Skettle or Nine-Pine Ground. 1771 F. Burney Early Diary (1889) I. 131 Pray get the skittle ground marked out. 1971 Country Life 9 Dec. 1673/3 In 1773, the spring was covered over, and the site reverted to a simple public house with a skittle-ground attached. |
| 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. iii. vii. 203 The kayle-pins were afterwards called..kittle-pins, and hence..*skittle-pins. |
| 1664 Cotton Scarron. iv. Wks. (1725) 109 Nor did I e'er make *skittle Pin-bones, Or Bobbins, of Anchises shin-bones. |
b. Miscellaneous, as
skittle-maker,
skittle-player,
skittle pool,
skittle-sharp,
skittle swindle;
skittle-playing,
skittle-sharping;
skittle-shaped;
skittle-pot, a jeweller's crucible fashioned like a skittle (Knight, 1875).
| 1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, *Skittle-maker, a turner who shapes wooden skittles. |
| 1822 Hazlitt Table-t. Ser. ii. vii. 158 As the *skittle-player bends his body to give a bias to the bowl. |
| 1767 A. Campbell Lexiph. (1774) 63 During a season of *skittle-playing. |
| 1884 Sat. Rev. 7 June 758/1 *Skittle pool and other minor games. |
| 1869 A. R. Wallace Malay Archip. I. 374 They are all *skittle-shaped, larger in the middle than at the base. |
| 1851 Mayhew Lond. Lab. I. 345/2, I was not..a *skittle sharp, for I never entered into a plot to victimise any person. 1881 Daily News 23 Dec. 5/6 The..victim of the skittle-sharp is..told that a man..who is very silly, is coming to play..and that if the dupe will ‘make one’ in the pitiful robbery he shall share in the proceeds. |
| 1862 Mayhew Lond. Lab. IV. 309 Others betake themselves to card-sharping and *skittle-sharping. |
| 1851 Ibid. I. 345/2 Getting into a hobble relative to a *skittle swindle. |
▪ II. skittle, v. (
skɪt(ə)l)
[f. prec.] 1. intr. To play at the game of skittles.
| 1865 Good Words 125/2 On ‘Saint Monday’ they go ‘pigeoning’, ‘skittling’, or after some other amusement. |
2. a. trans. With
down: To spend or lose (money) prodigally; to squander.
| 1883 Contemp. Rev. XLIV. 609 There are many ways in which the Australian..can skittle down his money... He can lose {pstlg}10,000 in a night at cards [etc.]. |
b. To knock down (skittles, etc.);
Cricket, to bowl out (batsmen) in rapid succession. Also
fig., to kill, defeat easily.
| 1880 Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack 18 Mr. Chatterton ‘skittled’ the wickets down so rapidly. 1919 W. H. Downing Digger Dial. 45 Skittled, killed. 1928 Daily Express 31 Mar. 3/4 Mine host and Mr. Herbert swung their arms, flung the cheeses, and skittled the pins. 1977 World of Cricket Monthly June 92/3 The Warwickshire bowling attack..skittled the students for a mere 59 in just 2½ hours. |
c. Cricket. Similarly with
out. Also, to dismiss (a team) cheaply.
| 1906 A. E. Knight Compl. Cricketer v. 172 Jim Jones thinks Sir Arthur Squire a rotten captain, who never gives him a chance to ‘skittle the rabbits out’. 1949 J. Symons Bland Beginning 216 Now that Anthony had found a length, he began to skittle out the batsmen. 1979 Daily Tel. 9 Aug. 1/3 Somerset's West Indian fast bowler, Joel Garner, took five wickets for 11 runs, helping to skittle out Kent for 60. |
Hence
ˈskittling vbl. n. Also
attrib.| 1890 F. W. Robinson Very strange Family 71 Throwing one piece of furniture at another in a skittling fashion. |