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Glite Dictionary
🏃‍♂️ To race on skates ⛸️ A racing skate
to speed skate

to speed skate

1 3.9
To skate fast in races on ice
  • phrasal verb
  • /spiːd skeɪt/
translation icon : patinar de velocidad
  • To prepare for the championship, she practices every day to improve her speed skating skills.

Examples

  • They speed skated in the championship last year.

  • She loves to speed skate on weekends.

  • Athletes from all over the world speed skate at the Winter Olympics.

  • She spent her weekends learning how to speed skate at the local arena.

  • The children loved to speed skate around the frozen pond each winter.

  • Many athletes train hard to speed skate competitively at the Olympics.

  • Last winter, I decided to speed skate with my friends on the frozen lake.

How Fast

to speed skate
1 3.9
to skate
305 1.0
to glide
89 2.9

Surface Forms

speed skate infinitive
speed skated past
speed skated past participle
speed skating present participle
speed skates third person singular

Morphology

speed + skate

The meaning 'to race or skate at high speed' is directly and compositionally derived from combining 'speed' (high velocity) with 'skate' (to move on skates), yielding a clear manner-of-motion interpretation. This is a productive, cross-linguistically common pattern in English, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Speed skate comes from the words speed and skate. Picture someone moving very fast on skates to win a race, and that picture shows why the verb means 'to race on skates'.