skitter

as in to scurry
to move quickly and lightly along a surface Dry leaves skittered over the sidewalk. Mice skittered across the floor.

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of skitter Arthropleura lived between 290 million and 346 million years ago, skittering around the Earth’s tropical equator alongside other massive arthropods like the two-foot-long scorpion Pulmonoscorpius. Olatunji Osho-Williams, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Oct. 2024 Any horror novel worth its salt should make the heart race and the spine tingle, as if a great, hairy spider was skittering along each vertebrae. Jordan Kopy, People.com, 18 Oct. 2024 Rain and Navarro rush in to save them, just in time to notice that a lot of skittering creatures are running, jumping, and trying to knock up their new visitors. David Fear, Rolling Stone, 14 Aug. 2024 Soon, those facehuggers are skittering all over the dimly lit corridors, jumping on people's faces, and impregnating them with other little aliens eager to burst out of chests. Jordan Hoffman, EW.com, 14 Aug. 2024 See All Example Sentences for skitter
Recent Examples of Synonyms for skitter
Verb
  • And as the pay has shrunk, RSNs and their team and league partners are now scurrying to at least get more eyeballs.
    Evan Drellich, The Athletic, 18 Feb. 2025
  • Rats scurry across the halls, smuggled in inadvertently between the folds of a homeless man’s clothes.
    Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 8 Feb. 2025
Verb
  • The Czech Republic Under-21 international would then have striker Darwin Nunez darting towards him, so repeatedly hit it long where, inevitably, Virgil van Dijk won the aerial duel against Richarlison and Liverpool regained control.
    Jay Harris, The Athletic, 7 Feb. 2025
  • According to Storyful, Seren ended up far from shore after darting away from her owner and into the waves along Newton Beach in Porthcawl, Wales.
    Charlotte Phillipp, People.com, 7 Feb. 2025
Verb
  • Brazilian Carnival is around the corner (beginning on February 28), a time when locals flock to the streets to dance, imbibe and connect with their heritage.
    Jillian Dara, Forbes, 21 Feb. 2025
  • In the modern story, Malaika, an artist, also dances (Banks is a choreographer and a dancer), and Dunbar’s poetry figures repeatedly in her story and Nico’s, too; the poem of the title, set to music, inspires a remarkable dance performance by Malaika’s friend Bill (Christopher Smith).
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 20 Feb. 2025
Verb
  • Image On the site of this family home in Jeju, the buried appear to rise again, their shadows flitting over the walls; dead and absent people and birds are intermittently present, and the distinction between dead and living grows fuzzy.
    Lydia Millet, New York Times, 17 Jan. 2025
  • Fleet, flitting here and there, in front of the orchestra and behind, her Puck seems to become the toh bird.
    Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2024
Verb
  • Jason Lloyd Evans At Harris Reed, models walked the runway fluttering exaggerated blue, gold, and jet black false eyelashes.
    Ranyechi Udemezue, Vogue, 26 Feb. 2025
  • Lift your legs off the floor and flutter your feet.
    Jakob Roze, Health, 26 Feb. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Skitter.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/skitter. Accessed 3 Mar. 2025.

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