skid
/skɪd
/- His bike skidded sideways and hit the road divider.
- It is understood that the vehicle skidded after avoiding a car involved in another accident, mounted the verge and became impaled on a pole projecting from a crash barrier.
- The bike was skidding sideways, and it slammed into the branch.
- Her bare feet skidded and slid over the dirt, sandals long since broken in the fight.
- I skidded, slipped, cursed, crashed, and generally regressed one full level in ability.
- Begin your powder turn and then instead of hitting your edges hard to carve a turn, stand up on two feet and let your skis slide or skid diagonally across the fall line.
- Just two days after buying his car he skidded it on black ice on a major road and wrote it off.
- Upon reaching the door Zeo skidded the car to a stop.
- He skidded the car to a stop at her last words, and she flung herself out of the car and started making her way towards the brush.
- When skidding logs back to roadside, Heisler is looking behind him about 90% of the time.
- We would skid the logs to roadside with horses, and then they were hauled to the lake where they were boomed, and a tugboat would take them to the mill.
- The horses also pull the farm's ‘truck,’ an antique box wagon, and skid logs for firewood out of the woods.
- The noise startled him, and he slid into a side skid.
- An undignified skid and a few slides later found him at the entrance to the parlor, where the voices had retreated to.
- Steer control induces a resistance in the steering, encouraging the driver to steer away from the resistance and so, out of the skid or slide.
- I gently fed power to the hover coils and, as the SAP eased off the ground, retracted the landing skids.
- They reached the surface and extended their landing skids.
- He constructed very long, rough wooden skids which he assembled into semi-geometric structures.
- The lumber coming off the saw is bundled and tagged and stacked on a skid.
- It had a shorter hinged shoulder support plate and a skid type bipod.
Phrases
hit the skids
on the skids
put the skids under
Derivatives
skiddy
- In wet conditions on a skiddy surface, Edith then drilled in a corner and caught the keeper off guard.
- Annoyed, I went off and practised a bit, working on getting my braking a bit more progressive and a bit less skiddy on the emergency variant.
- With rain tumbling down and the pitch skiddy, with the ball bouncing from hand to hand and the forwards dominating, the stadium sat agog.
Origin
Late 17th century (as a noun in the sense 'supporting beam'): perhaps related to Old Norse skíth (see ski).
This was first used in the sense ‘supporting beam’; it may be related to Old Norse skíth ‘billet, snowshoe’ (which also gave English ski in the mid 18th century via Norwegian). The verb was first used meaning ‘fasten a skid to (a wheel) to slow its motion’, later coming to mean ‘slip’. To hit the skids, ‘to begin a rapid decline or deterioration’, and the similar to put the skids under someone or something both originated in the USA. This skid is a North American term for a wooden roller that is used as part of a set to move logs or other heavy objects. Once a log is on the skids it can be slid forward very easily, gathering momentum until it reaches the end of the rollers and comes to an abrupt halt. Skid row, meaning ‘a run-down part of town frequented by tramps and alcoholics’, is also connected with logging. It originated as skid road in the late 19th century, and at first simply described a part of town frequented by loggers.