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Etymology and origin of the English word skate

English has three words spelled skate: the fish, the device for gliding on ice, and a slang word for a worn-out horse or a mean person.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

skate1 fish

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c1340, Durham Account Rolls
Borrowed from
Old Norse skata via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Old Norse skata

Etymology

The fish is inherited from Middle English scate,[2][5] borrowed from Old Norse skata,[3][6][2][7][8] a word that survives in Norwegian and Icelandic.[3] Barnhart and Etymonline compare Danish skade and Faroese skøta.[7][6] The Old Norse word is of unknown or uncertain origin.[6][9][10] Weekley also compares the Jutland form ska.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A large flat cartilaginous fish of the ray family: about 1340, in the account rolls of Durham Abbey;[3] Barnhart has the form schat from about 1340 and scate from about 1375, and the surname Scate as early as 1202.[7]

Semantic evolution

The name was used especially for the common European skate, a large species much eaten as food,[3][12] and later for related rays, often with a distinguishing word (1611).[3] Etymonline quotes the Century Dictionary: all skates are rays, but not all rays are called skates.[6] In Scottish and northern English dialect the fish gave compounds such as skate-bree, the water a skate has been boiled in, and skate-rumple, its hinder part, also used figuratively for a thin, awkward-looking person.[13] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as a flat sea fish.[14]

Timeline

  • 1202 – the surname Scate.[7]
  • c1340 – the fish.[3][7]
  • 1611 – with distinguishing adjectives.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A large, flat ray with a diamond-shaped body and a long thin tail, or its flesh as food: They had skate wing with capers for supper.

skate2 device for gliding

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1662, skeates, Pepys's Diary
Borrowed from
Dutch schaats
Ultimate origin
Dutch schaats

Etymology

The device for gliding on ice is borrowed from Dutch schaats (“skate; stilt”), whose final -s was taken in English for a plural ending, so that the singular skate was formed from the plural scates.[3][6][7][8][9] The Dutch word continues schaetse (“stilt”),[6][7][2] from Old French escache (“stilt, trestle”), a northern variant of eschace (“stilt”) (modern échasse).[7][8][12][6] The OED notes that the change of meaning from "stilt" to "skate" in Dutch has not been clearly traced.[3][15] The French word is probably Germanic: Barnhart and Etymonline take it from Frankish *skakkja (“stilt”), perhaps "a thing that shakes", related to the root of shake;[7][6][2] Klein and Weekley instead relate it to Middle Low German schenke (“leg”) and Old English scanca (“leg”), the source of shank,[9][11] since the earliest skates were made from the shank bones of animals.[11][6] The same northern French word gave the obsolete scatch (“a stilt”).[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A device fixed to the boot for gliding over ice: 1662, as skeates, in Pepys's Diary;[16][3] Etymonline dates it to the 1660s,[6] the Shorter Oxford to the mid-17th century,[12] and Merriam-Webster to 1684.[2] According to Etymonline, the word and the pastime were brought to England after the Restoration by followers of Charles II who had been in exile in Holland.[6] An older English name for an ice skate was scrick-shoe (1650s).[6]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) described a skate as a shoe armed with iron for sliding on the ice.[14] The verb, to glide on skates, is recorded from 1696,[3][2] and its transferred and figurative uses followed: to glide lightly and rapidly (1775), and to skate over thin ice or to skate over a subject, to pass over it hurriedly (1841, in Emerson).[3] The noun was extended to the roller skate by 1876,[3][6] and the phrase get one's skates on, hurry up, began as military slang in 1895.[3][15] Colloquially skate has meant to leave quickly since 1915,[3] and in 19th-century American slang skeet or skate meant to rush off.[17] In US slang it has also meant to get away with something, to escape a duty (1945).[6][3] In North America a skate is also a set of tackle for halibut fishing (1882).[3]

Timeline

  • 1662 – skeates, in Pepys's Diary.[16][3]
  • 1696 – the verb, to glide on skates.[3][2]
  • 1841 – figurative, to skate over a subject.[3]
  • 1853 – an act or spell of skating.[3][6]
  • 1876 – a roller skate.[3][6]
  • 1895 – to get one's skates on.[3]
  • 1945 – (US slang) to get away with something.[6][3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A boot or frame with a metal blade fixed to the sole, for gliding over ice; an ice skate.
  2. A roller skate.
  3. A spell of skating: We went for a skate on the frozen canal.

Verb

  1. To move on skates: The children skated round the rink all afternoon.
  2. To glide lightly or smoothly over a surface.
  3. To deal with a subject only briefly or superficially; often skate over or skate around.
  4. (US slang) To avoid a duty or punishment; to get away with something.

Phrase

  1. get one's skates on (British, informal): to hurry.
  2. skate on thin ice: to be in or risk a dangerous or delicate situation.

Word family

  • skater
  • skateboard
  • roller-skate
  • ice-skate
  • outskate

skate3 worn-out horse; contemptible person

Confidence
Uncertain
First attested
1894, R. Kipling

Etymology

The slang word for a nag or a mean person is of uncertain origin.[3][12][18] The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster think it is perhaps or probably an alteration of the dialect word skite, a contemptible person, seen also in blatherskite.[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A poor, worn-out horse: 1894, in Kipling in the Century Magazine,[3][2] and 1896 in American slang in Green's Dictionary of Slang.[17]

Semantic evolution

From the inferior horse the word passed to people: a mean, contemptible or dishonest person from 1896, in George Ade, especially in the compound cheapskate.[3][12] Merriam-Webster also records a neutral use, simply "fellow", as in a good skate.[2] In American slang a labor skate was a trade-union official (1930).[3][12]

Timeline

  • 1894 – a worn-out horse.[3][2]
  • 1896 – a mean or contemptible person.[3]
  • 1930 – (US) labor skate, a union official.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (slang, chiefly US) A worn-out, decrepit horse; a nag.
  2. (slang, chiefly US) A mean or contemptible person; also, in friendly use, a fellow.

Word family

  • cheapskate

References

  1. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  11. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  18. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Skate.” Etymologically, 22 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/skate. Accessed 23 Oct. 2026.

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