It’s in an exchange of insults, a sort of modern-day flyting: Green’s Dictionary of Slang mistakenly dates this to 1850, when the first version of the work was published, but it is not until the 1865 revised version that skedaddler appears in it. It appears in A New Pantomime by Irish writer Edward Kenealy. Persons living on the stream catch great numbers of them with the seine or hook, and literally feast on the luxury of fresh trout three times a day.Īnd by 1865 we get skedaddler, one who runs away, a coward. Their skedaddle is caused by the falling of the stream and the fact that the season of incubation has passed. SPORT.-Gentlemen who live in Carson Valley state there are great quantities of trout in the river, returning to the sink from the mountain streams. Of note, is this from San Francisco’s Steamer Bulletin of 11 September 1862 that uses skedaddle as a noun: It is at least an error of judgment, if not an intentional unkindness, to foist “skadaddle” on our Teutonic soldiers The word is used throughout the whole army of the Potomac, and means “to cut slack,” “vamose the ranche,” “slope,” “cut your lucky,” or “clear out”-So that Fort Skadaddle is equivalent to the “Fort Runaway.”Ī raft of uses of the term quickly follows, as the word gains traction throughout both armies. “SKADADDLE.”-The Washington correspondent of one of the morning papers informs us that the German soldiers have christened the Rebel earthworks back of Munson’s Hill “Fort Skadaddle.”įor the benefit of future etymologists, who may have a dictionary to make out when the English language shall have adopted “skadaddle” into familiar use by the side of “employee” and “telegram,” we here define the new term. The Baltimore paper says it is from the New York Post, but I have not found that earlier article: “You’d oughter seen that gang skedaddle.”Īnd we get this note in Baltimore’s American and Commercial Advertiser of 21 October 1861, about fighting early in the war. “Why sez I, “I never seed her, but as nigh as I can guess, about three hundred and seventy-five miles.” “Where did you find yourself after the ’splosion?” Mistakenly thinking that he was on the boat, the townspeople are solicitous and go out of their way to make sure he is well and has all that he needs: It appears in a humorous story about a traveler who arrives in a town shortly after a steamboat, the Franklin, suffered a boiler explosion with many casualities. The earliest recorded use of skedaddle is in the Wellsboro Pennsylvania newspaper The Agitator on 12 January 1860, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. So, this explanation is possible, but by no means certain. Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary of 1906 has entries for both scaddle and for skedaddle, but provides no citations for the latter that predate American use of the term. Liberman’s informed speculation is the most plausible explanation available. Dogs, apt to steal or snatch any thing that comes their way, are there said to be scaddle. In Kent, scaddle means thievish, rapacious.
That will not abide touching spoken of young horses that fly out. And indeed, Francis Grose’s Provincial Glossary of 1787 has this entry: Various Greek, Celtic, and Nordic etymologies have been proposed over the years, but with little to no evidence to support them.Īnatoly Liberman posits that it is a variant of the English dialect term scaddle-meaning wild, frisky, or to scare, frighten-with infix - da- added. Those roots, however, are not quite certain. The word rose to prominence in American slang during the US Civil War, but it probably has roots in English dialectal speech.
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