skit·tle

(skĭt′l)

1. skittles(used with a sing. verb) A British form of ninepins, in which a wooden disk or ball is thrown to knock down the pins.

2. One of the pins used in skittles.

[Perhaps of Scandinavian origin.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

skittles - a bowling game that is played by rolling a bowling ball down a bowling alley at a target of nine wooden pins

ninepins

bowling - a game in which balls are rolled at an object or group of objects with the aim of knocking them over or moving them

Translations

kuželky

kegle-keglespil

Kegel Kegeln

tekejáték

keila

kjegler

dokuz kuka oyunu

九柱戏撞柱戏

skittle

(ˈskitl) noun

a bottle-shaped, usually wooden object used as a target for knocking over in the game of skittles.

ˈskittles noun singular

a game in which the players try to knock down a number of skittles with a ball. a game of skittles; Do you play skittles?; (also adjective) a skittles match.

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

He looked with an indifferent eye, alike on skittles, cards, and dice, thinking only of the locksmith's daughter, and the base degenerate days on which he had fallen.

Mr Tappertit drained the proffered goblet to the dregs; then thrust his hands into his pockets, and with a lowering visage walked among the skittles, while his followers (such is the influence of superior genius) restrained the ardent ball, and held his little shins in dumb respect.

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At the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen are waiting and who is received with a salute of skittles from the good dry skittle-ground attached to the Sol's Arms.

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Sir Joseph knocked the pins about quite skilfully; Master Bowley took an innings at a shorter distance also; and everybody said that now, when a Baronet and the Son of a Baronet played at skittles, the country was coming round again, as fast as it could come.

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('Now,' thought Mr Boffin, 'if he proposes a game at skittles, or meets a country gentleman just come into property, or produces any article of jewellery he has found, I'll knock him down!' With this discreet reflection, and carrying his stick in his arms much as Punch carries his, Mr Boffin turned into Clifford's Inn aforesaid.)

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'Ah, that's just the wery thing, Sir,' rejoined Sam, 'they don't mind it; it's a reg'lar holiday to them--all porter and skittles. It's the t'other vuns as gets done over vith this sort o' thing; them down-hearted fellers as can't svig avay at the beer, nor play at skittles neither; them as vould pay if they could, and gets low by being boxed up.

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"They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of skittles," said he in conclusion.

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Life isn't all beer and skittles; but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman's education.

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Come, I'm not here to play skittles. Are you on for a deal or not?

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Norton, I met with a court chaplain, who was looking on at a party playing at skittles, and an old servant who named me, bursting into tears, and who was as near and as certainly killing me by his fidelity as another might have been by treachery.

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Here they work, read, play at skittles, and other games; and when the weather does not admit of their taking exercise out of doors, pass the day together.

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But I heard, afterwards, that he was seen to play a lively game at skittles, before noon.

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