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skirt

Syllabification: (skirt)
Pronunciation: /skərt/
Translate skirt | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of skirt

noun

  • a woman’s outer garment fastened around the waist and hanging down around the legs.
  • the part of a coat or dress that hangs below the waist.
  • informal a woman or women regarded as objects of sexual desire:so, Al, off to chase some skirt?
  • the curtain that hangs around the base of a hovercraft to contain the air cushion.
  • a surface that conceals or protects the wheels or underside of a vehicle or aircraft.
  • a small flap on a saddle, covering the bar from which the stirrup leather hangs.
  • archaic an edge, border, or extreme part. Compare with outskirts.

verb

[with object]
  • go around or past the edge of:he did not go through the city but skirted it
  • be situated along or around the edge of:the fields that skirted the highway were full of cattle
  • [no object] (skirt along/around) go along or around (something) rather than directly through or across it:the river valley skirts along the northern slopes of the hills
  • attempt to ignore; avoid dealing with:there was a subject she was always skirting [no object]:the treaty skirted around the question of political cooperation

Derivatives

skirted

adjective
[in combination]:a full-skirted dress

Origin:

Middle English: from Old Norse skyrta 'shirt'; compare with synonymous Old English scyrte, also with short. The verb dates from the early 17th century

skirt in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of skirt in the British & World English dictionary