helter-skelter
/ˌhɛltɚˈskɛltɚ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.20 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
13
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
In confused, disorderly haste.
adj
Carelessly hurried and confused.
noun
An amusement ride consisting of a slide that spirals down around the exterior of a tapering central tower, most commonly modeled after lighthouses.
British usage; Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The winds knocked huge trees helter-skelter all over my garden."
- "But the butterflies were dead. A whiff of rotten eggs had vanquished the pale clouded yellows which came pelting across the orchard and up Dods Hill and away on to the moor, now lost behind a furze bush, then off again helter-skelter in a broiling sun."
- "Pellets, once released from the funnel, would bounce helter-skelter, left or right, against the pins […] to ultimately gather in the lower compartments in a pile which resembles a normal curve."
- "After World War II, from 1945 until the early 1960s, the helter-skelter growth of the reprint industry went largely unheeded by the general publishing industry, then under its own mounting pressures to publish new works for a growing reading public and ever-larger numbers of educational institutions."
- "Although his existential thoughts seem to have been tossed onto the page in helter-skelter fashion, what Gilboa does here is to open his mind and heart to the reader through verbal jaggedness and poetic unneatness."
- "‘I hardly know, — I imagine that it was with some dim idea of Marjorie’s being able to get in if she returned while I was absent, — but the truth is I was in such a condition of helter skelter that I am not prepared to swear that I had any reasonable reason.’"
Etymology
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌhɛltɚˈskɛltɚ/
- British English: /ˌhɛltəˈskɛltə/
Usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
- British usage