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Glite Dictionary
🤼 A small fight 🤼 To fight briefly
to skirmish

to skirmish

2 7.6
To take part in a brief, minor fight, often before a larger battle
  • verb
  • /ˈskɜːrmɪʃ/
translation icon : escaramuzar
  • These foraging parties and their escorts often skirmish with the Pompeian cavalry, but there was no major conflict.

Here we're seeing versatile light cavalry skirmishing.

Examples

  • That's an objective line across which the left has been skirmishing for a while.

    Blog text (16)

  • I'll skirmish around with the Pawnees for a few miles.

    The Big Trail (1930)

  • This may have been part of screening operations or skirmishing gone wrong.

  • Then they advanced against the barely armoured Roman light troops, whose main job was to skirmish at a distance.

  • So to sum up, we have skirmishing in the north, both Red and White victories in the South, and a White advance in the east.

  • Last week, German and Ottoman troops, though allies, skirmished in the Caucasus.

  • The two sides began to skirmish at the edge of the forest as tensions rose between their nations.

  • During the training exercise, soldiers were instructed to skirmish with mock enemies before the main battle drill.

  • The rival factions continued to skirmish throughout the night, testing each other's defenses in the dark.

Synonyms

to skirmish over
vsto skirmish
6.7

Argue a little about something, like where to eat

is a brief fight used as a military preliminary rather than a simple dispute

Antonyms

to withdraw
466 2.8

To stop taking part in a place or activity

to refrain
87 4.2

Choose not to do something you want to do

Phrasal Verbs

to skirmish over
6.7

Argue a little about something, like where to eat

Compounds

brief skirmish
5.9

A quick, minor fight between people or animals

How Violent

to war
7 5.9
to fight
∞ 1.0
to skirmish
2 7.6
to tussle
7 5.3
to scuffle
4 5.1

Surface Forms

skirmish infinitive
skirmished past
skirmished past participle
skirmishing present participle
skirmishes third person singular

Etymology

The verb skirmish comes from the same old word eschermir meaning 'to shield' or 'to fight lightly', which described small actions before a big battle, so to skirmish is to take part in a brief, minor fight or clash.