skirt
pronunciation
How to pronounce skirt in British English:
UK [skɜːt]
How to pronounce skirt in American English:
US [skɜːrt]
-
- Noun:
- cloth covering that forms the part of a garment below the waist
- a garment hanging from the waist; worn mainly by girls and women
- informal terms for a (young) woman
-
- Verb:
- avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues)
- pass around or about; move along the border
- form the edge of
- extend on all sides of simultaneously; encircle
Word Origin
- skirt
- skirt: [13] Essentially skirt is the same word as shirt. It was borrowed from Old Norse skyrta ‘shirt’, which came from the same prehistoric Germanic source as English shirt, and likewise meant etymologically ‘short garment’. It is not clear why English came to use the word for ‘woman’s garment hanging from the waist’, but a link may be provided by modern Icelandic skyrta, which denotes a sort of long shirt with full tails that come down well below the waist. Swedish skört and Danish skørt ‘skirt’ were borrowed from the related Middle Low German schorte ‘apron’.=> shear, shirt, short
- skirt (n.)
- early 14c., "lower part of a woman's dress," from Old Norse skyrta "shirt, a kind of kirtle;" see shirt. Sense development from "shirt" to "skirt" is possibly related to the long shirts of peasant garb (compare Low German cognate Schört, in some dialects "woman's gown"). Sense of "border, edge" (in outskirts, etc.) first recorded late 15c. Metonymic use for "women collectively" is from 1550s; slang sense of "young woman" is from 1906; skirt-chaser first attested 1942.
- skirt (v.)
- c. 1600, "to border, form the edge of," from skirt (n.). Meaning "to pass along the edge" is from 1620s. Related: Skirted; skirting.
Example
- 1. Others brushed the skirt with green and purple .
- 2. She usually wears a skirt that reaches below the knee .
- 3. It is then helen notices that her skirt is damp .
- 4. Slowly button his shirt , and let him zip up your skirt .
- 5. Taper your pencil skirt just slightly to give it some shape .