skittish

English

Probably from skite (“to move lightly and hurriedly; to move suddenly, particularly in an oblique direction (Scotland, Northern England)”) +‎ -ish; compare skitter.

IPA^(key): /ˈskɪtɪʃ/
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Hyphenation: skit‧tish
Audio (US): (file)

skittish (comparative more skittish, superlative most skittish)

Easily scared or startled; timid.
The cat likes people he knows, but he is skittish around strangers.
- 1557, Roger Edgeworth, Sermons Very Fruitfull, Godly, and Learned, London: Robert Caly, The fiftenth treatice or Sermon,^[1]
  All such be like a skittish starting horse, whiche coming ouer a bridge, wil start for a shadowe, or for a stone lying by him, and leapeth ouer on the other side into the water, & drowneth both horse and man.
Wanton; changeable; fickle
- c. 1601 William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene 3,^[2]
  How some men creep in skittish fortune’s hall,
  
  Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
- 1785, William Cowper, The Task, London: J. Johnson, Book 2, p. 69,^[3]
  […] ’Tis pitiful
  
  To court a grin, when you should wooe a soul;
  
  To break a jest, when pity would inspire
  
  Pathetic exhortation; and t’ address
  
  The skittish fancy with facetious tales,
  
  When sent with God’s commission to the heart.
Difficult to manage; tricky.
- 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book 2, Chapter 15,^[4]
  For everybody’s family doctor was remarkably clever, and was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management and training of the most skittish or vicious diseases.

easily scared

fickle