skelp

English

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /skɛlp/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)

Etymology 1

From Middle English skelpen, probably of imitative origin. The noun is from Middle English skelp, from the verb.

Verb

skelp (third-person singular simple present skelps, present participle skelping, simple past and past participle skelped)

  1. (transitive, Scotland, Northern England) To beat or slap with the hand.
    • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 24:
      But Mistress Munro would up and be at the door and in she'd yank Andy by the lug, and some said she'd take down his breeks and skelp him, but maybe that was a lie.
    • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 67:
      My stomach was just sore and I was rubbing it. But he just reached and skelped me on the leg and I fell down and he waited for me to get up and he skelped me on the b*m.
  2. (transitive, Scotland, Northern England) To beat, pound or hammer.
    • 1804, George Galloway, The Battle of Luncarty, Or the Valiant Hays Triumphant Over the Danish Invaders, page 15:
      ... hither blith comes tinker John, Who skelps the kettle, and sweet tunes the drone,  […]
    • 1819, Newcastle dialect, A collection of songs, comic and satirical, chiefly in the Newcastle dialect. By mess. Thompson, Shield and others, page 17:
      "Fa' in! fa' in!" he's yelpin : The fifes are whuslin' loud and clear, An ' sair the drums they're skelpin'.
    • 1877, Samuel Smiles, Life of a Scotch Naturalist: Thomas Edward, Associate of the Linnean Society, page 183:
      ... sewing, hammering, and "skelping away at the leather."
  3. (Scotland) To drive by blows; to drive (hard), to cause to move rapidly.
    • 1861, Roger Quinn, The Heather Lintie: Being the Poetical Pieces, Spiritual and Temporal, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, page 112:
      My fair opponents skelp me aff, […]
    • 1876, John Mactaggart, The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, page 126:
      We'll skelp him to hell, / where his frien's will him crown, […]
    • 1879, Samuel Smiles, Life of a Scotch Naturalist, Thomas Edward: Associate of the Linnean Society, page 17:
      A byke was regarded as a glorious capture, not only for the sake of the honey, but because of the fun the boys had in skelpin' out the bees.
  4. (intransitive, Scotland, Northern England, Ireland) To move briskly along; to run.
    • 1824, John Mactaggart, The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia: or the Original Antiquated and Natural Curiosities of the South of Scotland, page 47:
      […] the lassie became extremely wild, ran like a hare, and […] skelped home in a crack, on the "light side of her foot," to Barniewater.
    • 1843, Thomas Wilson, The Pitman's Pay; and Other Poems, page 49:
      ... that little plaguy breed / That skelp aboot in youngster's hair.
    • 1855, Walter Scott, Waverly novels, library edition, page 7:
      ... up cam my young Lord Evandale, skelping as fast as his horse could trot, and twenty red-coats at his back.
    • 1875, Patrick Kennedy, The Banks of the Boro: A Chronicle of the County of Wexford, page 105:
      ... I saw Pat skelping along without a cap or a hat on his sun-burnt hair. 'What's the hurry, Pat?' says I. 'I'm going to see the execution,' says he.
    • 1889, John Nicholson (School principal), The Folk Speech of East Yorkshire, page 46:
      […] sha […] com skelpin yam, as thof summat had bont her, Or thoosans o' rattens an mice was behont her. Lawk! hoo sha did […]
  5. (intransitive) To rain heavily; (of rain) to fall.
    • (Can we date this quote?), John McCuaig, The Sennachie, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 158:
      ... more than halfway to the summit / A rain squall down on them did plummet, / Skelping down harder by the minute / We'll wait […]
    • 2021 August 30, Henry James Halliwell Sutcliffe, Storm: A Tale of Nature's Wrath and Human Resilience, Good Press:
      "Lord Harry only knows what sort of storm is skelping down." They two knew what sort of storm it was, when they reached the long pasture that raked up into the Logie highroad. The wind came, and the snow, and biting hail - came ravening on the track of the wild-geese […]

Noun

skelp (plural skelps)

  1. A blow; a smart stroke, especially with the hand; a smack.
    • 1833, Michael Scott, Tom Cringle's Log:
      They came crack down on their bottoms with a loud skelp on the seats.
    • 1899, J. B. Montgomerie Fleming, Desultory Notes on Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, page 144:
      A skelp on the lug is not a very deadly assault. It is neither a stroke nor a blow.
  2. (Scotland) A squall; a heavy fall of rain.
  3. (Scotland) A large portion.
    • 1921, The Smart Set: A Magazine of Cleverness, page 4:
      Great skelps of riotous colors followed each other across the window-framed screen, pounding upon bleak northern hearts as the surf pounds upon a rocky headland.
    • 2017 July 4, Donal Ryan, All We Shall Know: A Novel, Penguin, →ISBN, page 64:
      ... great skelps of centuries together until they're almost in the same skin, growing into each other, shrinking to each other's sizes and shapes, speaking with one voice, clinging fast together, dying days or hours apart.

Etymology 2

Noun

skelp (plural skelps)

  1. A narrow strip of rolled or forged metal, ready to be bent and welded to form a pipe.
    • 1836, William Newton, editor, The London Journal of Arts and Sciences; and Repertory of Patent Inventions, pages 407–8:
      […] he then heats one half of the skelp at a time in an air furnace, or other fire, and having so heated it, he passes the skelp between a pair of grooved rollers placed at the mouth of the furnace, for the purpose of uniting (or marrying, as he terms it) the edges of the metal ; that is, causing the edges of the open part of the skelp to be pressed together, and made to adhere and form a complete cylinder.

Verb

skelp (third-person singular simple present skelps, present participle skelping, simple past and past participle skelped)

  1. (transitive) To form (a plate or bar of metal, etc.) into a skelp.
  2. (transitive) To bend round (a skelp) in tube-making.

Anagrams

Scots

Etymology

Probably imitative, or from Scottish Gaelic sgealp (“slap”).

Verb

skelp (third-person singular simple present skelps, present participle skelpin, simple past skelpt, past participle skelpt)

  1. To beat, slap, now especially the backside.
    She skelpt ma doup
    She spanked my bottom
    A wis skelpt in the face fae the tree's beuch
    I was slapped in the face by the tree branch.
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