Etymology

skittle

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Today it means: One of the wooden targets used in skittles. Full definition →

North Germanic ← Old Norse skutill
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The story

  1. Old Norse · derived fromskutill“bolt, harpoon”
  2. North Germanic · derived from
  3. English todayskittle

Origin unknown. Perhaps of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse skutill (“bolt, harpoon”), related to skjóta (“to shoot”), but the OED dismisses this connection as conjecture. The Old Norse word is related to Swedish and Danish skyttel (“shuttle, child's toy”). Compare also Old English sċytel (“a dart, bolt”). More at shuttle.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.