skeet

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skiːt/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːt

Etymology 1

Pseudo-archaic alteration of shoot, perhaps with reference to Old Norse skjóta; compare Scots skite (“to dart, to shoot”). The name for a form of trapshooting is attested from the 1920s, see quotations below. Senses related to ejaculation of semen likely derive from this, but compare also squirt, skite, or scoot. The word skeet is attested in reference to working class persons in US English from the 19th century, or the Newfoundland and Labrador regionalism may derive from other terms such as skite or skeeter; see quotation below.

Noun

skeet (countable and uncountable, plural skeets)

1. (uncountable) A form of trapshooting using clay targets to simulate birds in flight.
   • 1929, “Skeet”, in West Virginia Wildlife, volume 7, page 22:

     THE ARTICLE on the sport of Skeet that appeared in the June issue of WILD LIFE described the layout of the Skeet field, installation of the traps, and the rules and regulations for Skeet shooting.

   • 1932, Charles Askins, “Notes on skeet”, in Outdoor Life, page 40:

     The longer I shoot skeet the more convinced I am that it is the greatest game ever devised for the users of shotguns. Skeet has brought home to shooters the need of properly fitting guns and the benefit of straighter stocks

   • [1940, “In the Spring—Skeet”, in Scientific American, page 363:

     To Mrs. Gertrude Hurlbutt, Montana rancher’s wife, went a $100 prize in 1926 from National Sportsman and Hunting and Fishing magazines for christening their newly sponsored shotgun sport “skeet” – Scandinavian derivation, meaning “to shoot.”]

   • 2007, King Heiple, Mastering Skeet‎^[1], page 163:

     Skeet started informally in 1920 as off-season practice for bird hunting, so it needed few rules. It became more formally organized in 1926 when the National Skeet Shooting Association (NSSA) was formed.

2. (countable, poker) A hand consisting of a 9, a 5, a 2, and two other cards lower than 9.
3. (uncountable, slang, African-American Vernacular) The ejaculation of semen.
4. (countable, Newfoundland, Labrador, slang) A young working-class person who may be loud, disruptive and poorly educated.
   • [2010, Sandra Clarke, Newfoundland and Labrador English‎^[2], page 151:

     A small part at least of the language associated with younger speakers originates in local words that appear to have undergone local meaning change. A good example is skeet. This term may be related to skite which in neighbouring Prince Edward Island can mean a 'young scoundrel' (Pratt 1988), or to the American terms skeester/skeeter, definied by the Dictionary of American Regional English (Cassidy and Hall 1985) as 'rascal, rogue'. If older NLE speakers know this word at all, they would probably use it in this sense. Among younger speakers, however, it has much the same meaning as such British slang terms as chav, charver or scally, or even the North American white trash.]

Derived terms

• skeet shooting

Translations

form of trapshooting

• Czech: skeet m
• Finnish: skeet (fi), skeet-ammunta
• French: ball-trap (fr) m
• German: Skeet n
• Italian: tiro al piattello m
• Russian: стрельба́ по таре́лочкам f (strelʹbá po taréločkam)
• Spanish: tiro al plato m

ejaculation of semen

• German: Abspritzen n (vulgar)

Verb

skeet (third-person singular simple present skeets, present participle skeeting, simple past and past participle skeeted)

1. (transitive, intransitive, of fluids) To shoot or spray.
   • 2004, Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter‎^[3]:

     ‘Aoow! You skeeted the water right in my ear. It’s busted my eardrum. I can’t even hear.’
     ‘Gimme here. Let me skeet some.’

   • 2004, Camika C Spencer, He Had It Coming‎^[4]:

     When her left hook connected with his nose, blood skeeted out and stained her top.

2. (African-American Vernacular, slang) To ejaculate.
   • 2002 October 8, “Get Low” (track 19), in Kings of Crunk‎^[5], performed by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz:

     To the window (To the window). To the wall (To the wall). Till the sweat drop down my balls (My balls). Till all these bitches crawl (Crawl). Till all skeet skeet motherfucker (Motherfucker).

   • 2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 17:

     "Good, then," I said, my joint about to skeet like a water pistol. I was surprised too. I was known for having supreme dick control, and I could usually last a lot longer than this.

   • 2011, Deborah Carter, Wildflower‎^[6], Lulu/self-published, →ISBN, page 177:

     I just don’t understand how women get pregnant nowadays, especially while they have no intention on making a baby, […] yet and still letting some dude, boyfriend, or friend with benefits slide in for a 7-10 split, and not exactly advising him to pull out before he accidentally skeets .

Synonyms

• squirt

Translations

to shoot or spray liquids

• Finnish: ruiskuttaa (fi)
• Italian: spruzzare (it), schizzare (it)

to ejaculate

• German: abspritzen (de) (vulgar)
• Italian: eiaculare (it)

Etymology 2

Unknown. Compare Icelandic skeið (“spoon”), from Old Norse skeið (“a sheath”). Attested from the 15th century; see quotation below.

Noun

skeet (plural skeets)

1. (obsolete) A long-handled shovel or scoop.
   • c. 1440, Arthur Brandeis, editor, Jacob's well : an Englisht treatise on the cleansing of man's conscience‎^[7], published 1900, page 2:

     My werk & labour schal be to tellyn what is þis wose of þe vij. dedly synnes, & how ʒe schul caste out þis wose, ffirst wyth with a skeet of contricyoun, and after wyth a skauell of confession, and þanne schouelyn out clene þe crummys, wyth þe schouele of satisfaccyoun.

     My work and labor shall be to tell what is this ooze of the deadly sins, and how they shall cast out this ooze, first with the skeet of contrition and after with the spade of confession, and then shovel out the crumbs cleanly with the shovel of satisfaction.

2. (nautical) [from 17th century] A scoop with a long handle, used to wash the sides of a vessel and formerly to wet the sails or deck.
   • 1862, Vanderdecken [William Cooper], The Yacht Sailor‎^[8], page 131:

     The best method for wetting the after sails is with a garden syringe or small engine […] For the head sails a skeet made of tough ash, having a good long handle ; the head or skeeting part curves scimitar fashion, to be about three and a half feet in length, and scooped out an inch and a half in width by two and a half inches in depth

Verb

skeet (third-person singular simple present skeets, present participle skeeting, simple past and past participle skeeted)

1. (nautical, dated) To wet the sails or deck of a vessel.
   • 1870, Henry Coleman Folkard, The Sailing Boat, page 161:

     It is a customary rule in all sailing matches that the sails of competing vessels should not be skeeted (i.e. wetted), except when the vessel is on a wind

Etymology 3

Uncertain. Compare Manx skeetagh (“nosy”, adverb). Compare also English peek (“to look slyly; a quick glance”, verb or noun) or skit (“to caper; to be skittish”, verb).

Noun

skeet (uncountable)

1. (Isle of Man) news or gossip

Verb

skeet (third-person singular simple present skeets, present participle skeeting, simple past and past participle skeeted)

1. (Isle of Man) to spy through the front windows of somebody else's house

Etymology 4

Blend of sky +‎ tweet, from the resemblance to tweets posted on Twitter.

Noun

skeet (plural skeets)

1. (Internet slang) A post on the Bluesky social media platform.
   • [2023 April 29, Sheera Frenkel, “Interest Builds Over Bluesky, A Social Site Akin to Twitter”, in New York Times, page B3:

     Bluesky’s users appear to be having fun with the app’s similarities to Twitter, including calling posts on the app “skeets,” as a play on tweets. Not even a plea from Ms. Graber on Thursday to change that name seems to have deterred them.]

   • 2023 June 10, Annalee Newitz, “And now for something completely familiar”, in New Scientist, volume 258, page 22:

     At first, it was kind of fun when Bluesky broke. […] When threading broke – causing people to receive tonnes of notifications if they replied to a long enough chain of skeets – users created the "hellthread", an infinitely long, chaotic conversation

   • 2023 July 22, Max Chafkin, “What if the next big social media app is ... Nothing?”, in Irish Examiner, Cork:

     My last ‘toot’, as Mastodon’s users call tweets, was in December. I’ve never even done a ‘skeet’, the unfortunate name of the Bluesky version.

   • [2024 February 7, “X alternative Bluesky finally opens up for all: What’s the hype about?”, in Indian Express, Mumbai:

     Bluesky’s faithful have playfully dubbed posts “skeets” in contrast to tweets – although Bluesky’s own CEO Jay Graber has begged users to stop using that term.]

   • 2024 November 17, Tim de Lisle, “West Indies v England: fifth men’s T20 cricket international – match abandoned”, in The Guardian‎^[9]:

     Another skeet! Blue Sky^[sic] is clearly taking off – not content with picking up a million new accounts on Friday, and another million on Saturday, it has now played its part in two posts on the OBO.

Verb

skeet (third-person singular simple present skeets, present participle skeeting, simple past and past participle skeeted)

1. (Internet slang) To create a skeet.
   • 2023 May 1, “Yellen Predicts Debt Limit Could Be Reached By June”, in The Lead with Jake Tapper, spoken by Jake Tapper:

     Yeah, and there's a new social media app called Blue Sky, and on it, Senator Brian Schatz from Hawaii, Democrat, he just skeeted, quote, the only way to prevent default with a bipartisan majority and 60 in the Senate is a clean anti-default bill.

   • 2024 February 9, Ubaid Zargar, quoting Naresh Gupta, “Is Jack Dorsey's Bluesky another Threads in the making?”, in afaqs!, Mumbai:

     Bluesky is a bit like the retro Twitter, same colour scheme, similar way of building content etc, and so it reminds people of early Twitter. I am not sure if that’s enough to make people fall in love with Bluesky and go skeeting all day.

Anagrams

• keets, 'keets, skete, teeks, Teske, ekest, steek

Manx

Noun

skeet

1. A creeping, sneaking fellow.

Spanish

Noun

skeet m (uncountable)

1. skeet (style of shooting)