helter-skelter

名词 n. 形容词 adj. 副词 adv.
/ˌhɛltəˈskɛltə/    /ˌhɛltɚˈskɛltɚ/

英文释义

名词 n.
  1. Confusion or turmoil. countable,uncountable
    — ‘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.’
  2. An amusement ride consisting of a slide that spirals down around the exterior of a tapering central tower. UK,countable,uncountable
    — He is finishing, this week, a remarkable thing called a helter skelter: This is a circular building 50 feet high which people climb, by means of an interior winding stair. At the top they each take a seat in a semicircular wooden trough which curls around the outside of the house, gradually leading towards the ground with a terrific rush, they slide down this and are rapidly delivered on to the grass below.
形容词 adj.
  1. Carelessly hurried and confused.
    — 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.
副词 adv.
  1. In confused, disorderly haste.
    — The winds knocked huge trees helter-skelter all over my garden.

词形变化

more helter-skelter comparative most helter-skelter superlative more helter-skelter comparative most helter-skelter superlative helter-skelters plural

词源

词源 1
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.
词源 2
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.
词源 3
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.
1 次浏览 数据来源: Wiktionary