helter-skelter
In confused, disorderly hasteIn confused, disorderly haste.
Translations
3 languagesBy meaning 1
Meaning
1 sensesIn confused, disorderly haste.
The winds knocked huge trees helter-skelter all over my garden.
holterdiepolter, Hals über Kopf
- haphazardly
Origin
In form a reduplication (similar to hurry-scurry and harum-scarum, both with initial /h-/In form a reduplication (similar to hurry-scurry and harum-scarum, both with initial /h-/ and /sk-/); perhaps based on Middle English skelten ("to hasten; to raise an alarm"), or maybe related to Old High German skeltan (“scold”) from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kel- (“make noise, yell”), employed as a fossil word.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
more helter-skelter, most helter-skelter| Comparative | more helter-skelter Lesson |
|---|---|
| Superlative | most helter-skelter |
regular
Synonyms
1 synonyms- haphazardly:every which way
Lessons for this word
1 lessons- A2Comparatives — Because it has a comparative form
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.