- (also ice skate)a boot with a thin metal blade (= sharp edge) on the bottom, that is used for skating on ice
- a pair of skates
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- (also roller skate)a type of boot with two pairs of small wheels attached to the bottom
- (plural skate, skates)a large flat sea fish that can be eatenTopics Fish and shellfishc2
Word Originnoun sense 1 mid 17th cent. (originally as the plural scates): from Dutch schaats (singular but interpreted as plural), from Old French eschasse ‘stilt’. noun sense 2 Middle English: from Old Norse skata.
Idioms
See skate in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionaryget/put your skates on
- (British English, informal) used to tell somebody to hurry
- Get your skates on or you'll miss the bus.
Check pronunciation:
skate