Skedaddle

To skedaddle is to depart the scene in a great hurry and first appears in America at the time of the Civil War (1861-65) when troops on either side would often skedaddle rather than face the enemy. The word has of course since lost the connotation of running away from a fight but its origin remains obscure. It would appear to be a word brought to America by immigrants variously identified as Gaelic, Scandinavian, Dutch or German but no word in these languages has definitively been produced to back these claims. The most plausible candidate appears to be sgedadol an Irish Gaelic word that means ‘scattered’. Until more evidence emerges, this is probably the most plausible explanation for the origin.