sky

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See also: Skye, Sky, SKY, ský, -sky, and -ský

English

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WOTD – 18 October 2021

Etymology

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A blue sky (sense 1).

The noun is derived from Middle English ski, skie, sky (“firmament, heavens, sky; cloud; cloud of mist or vapour; fog, mist; (astrology) certain configuration of the heavens; (astronomy) sphere of the celestial realm; (physiology) cloudiness, smoky residue (for example, in urine)”) [and other forms],[1] from Old Norse ský (“cloud”), from Proto-Germanic *skiwją (“cloud; sky”), from *skiwô (“cloud; cloud cover, haze; sky”) (whence Old English sċēo (“cloud”) and Middle English skew (“air; sky; (rare) cloud”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH- (“to cover; to conceal, hide”).[2]

The verb is derived from the noun.[3]

cognates

The English word is cognate with Old English scēo (“cloud”), Old Saxon scio, skio, skeo (“light cloud cover”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian Bokmål sky (“cloud”), Old Irish ceo (“mist, fog”), Irish ceo (“mist, fog”). It is also related to Old English scūa (“shadow, darkness”), Latin obscūrus (“dark, shadowy”), Sanskrit स्कुनाति (skunāti, “he covers”). See also hide, hose, house, hut, shoe.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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sky (plural skies)

  2. The atmosphere above a given point, especially as visible from the surface of the Earth as the place where the sun, moon, stars, and clouds are seen.
    Synonyms: blue, firmament, heaven, (chiefly Scotland) lift, (literary or poetic, archaic) welkin
    That year, a meteor fell from the sky.
    • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
      For beſides the groues, / The skyes, the fountaines, euery region neare / Seeme all one mutuall cry. I neuer heard / So muſicall a diſcord, ſuch ſweete thunder.
    • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 13, page 40:
      His wearie ghoſt aſſoyld from fleſhly band, / Did not as others wont, directly fly / Vnto her reſt in Plutoes grieſly land, / Ne into ayre did vaniſh preſently, / Ne chaunged was into a ſtarre in sky: […]
    • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:
      [I]f you doe not all ſhew like guilt twoo pences to mee, and I in the cleere skie of Fame, ore-ſhine you as much as the full moone doth the cindars of the element, (which ſhew like pinnes heads to her) beleeue not the worde of the noble: […]
      [I]f you do not all appear like gilt twopences [i.e., counterfeit coins] next to me, and I, in the clear sky of fame, outshine you as much as the full moon outshines the cinders of the element [i.e., the stars] (which look like pinheads next to the moon), then don't believe me: […]
    • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene vi], page 396, column 1:
      [A] Nobler Sir, ne're liu'd / 'Twixt sky and ground.
    • 1660 November 11 (Gregorian calendar), John Evelyn, “[Diary entry for 1 November 1660]”, in William Bray, editor, Memoirs, Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […]; and sold by John and Arthur Arch, […], published 1819, →OCLC, page 327:
      I went with some of my relations to Court, to shew them his Maties cabinet and closset of rarities; […] Here I saw […] amongst the clocks, one that shew'd the rising and setting of the Sun in ye Zodiaq, the Sunn represented by a face and raies of gold, upon an azure skie, observing ye diurnal and annual motion, rising and setting behind a landscape of hills, the work of our famous Fromantel; and severall other rarities.
    • 1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 103, lines 245–248:
      [T]he cunning Leach ordains / In Summer's Sultry Heats (for then it reigns) / To feed the Females, e're the Sun ariſe, / Or late at Night, when Stars adorn the Skies.
    • 1700, Mat[thew] Prior, “Carmen Seculare, for the Year 1700. To the King.”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], published 1709, →OCLC, page 164:
      Through the large Convex of the Azure Sky, / (For thither Nature caſts our common Eye) / Fierce Meteors ſhoot their arbitrary Light, / And Comets march with lawleſs Horror bright; […]
    • 1725, Homer, “Book III”, in [Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume I, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC, page 120, lines 411–412:
      A length of Ocean and unbounded sky, / Which ſcarce the Sea-fowl in a year o'erfly […]
    • 1807, William Wordsworth, “To a Sky-lark”, in Poems, in Two Volumes, volume I, London: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], →OCLC, page 81:
      There is madness about thee, and joy divine / In that song of thine; / Up with me, up with me, high and high, / To thy banqueting-place in the sky!
    • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Five. The End of It.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, pages 154–155:
      Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious!
    • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 40:
      So this was my future home, I thought! […] Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
    • 1926, Irving Berlin (lyrics and music), “Blue Skies”:
      Blue skies / Smiling at me / Nothing but blue skies / Do I see
  3. With a descriptive word: the part of the sky which can be seen from a specific place or at a specific time; its climate, condition, etc.
    I lay back under a warm Texas sky.
    We’re not sure how long the cloudy skies will last.
  4. (chiefly literary and poetic, archaic) Usually preceded by the: the abode of God or the gods, angels, the souls of deceased people, etc.; heaven; also, powers emanating from heaven.
    This mortal has incurred the wrath of the skies.
  5. Ellipsis of sky blue.
    • 1667 March 12 (first performance), John Dryden, Secret-Love, or The Maiden-Queen: […], London: […] Henry Herringman, […], published 1669, →OCLC, Act III, scene i, page 26:
      But yet methinks, thoſe knots of Sky, do not / So well with the dead colour of her Face.
    • 1668, George Etherege, She Wou’d if She Cou’d, a Comedy. […], London: […] [John Macocke] for H[enry] Herringman, […], →OCLC, Act III, scene ii, page 39:
      [W]hy, / Brother, I have beſpoke Dinner, and engag'd / Mr. Rake-hell, the little ſmart Gentleman I have / Often promis'd thee to make thee acquainted / Withal, to bring a whole Bevy of Damſels / In Sky, and Pink, and Flame-colour'd Taffeta's.
  6. (mathematics, theoretical physics) The set of all lightlike lines (or directions) passing through a given point in space-time.
    Synonym: celestial sphere
  7. (obsolete, informal, rare) In an art gallery: the upper rows of pictures that cannot easily be seen; also, the place where such pictures are hung.
  8. (obsolete) A cloud. [13th–16th c.]

Usage notes

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The word can be used correctly in either the singular or plural form, but the plural is now mainly literary.

Alternative forms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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See sky/translations § Noun.

Verb

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sky (third-person singular simple present skies, present participle skying, simple past and past participle skied or skyed)

  1. (transitive)
    1. (informal) To drink (a beverage) from a container without one's lips touching the container.
    2. (informal, dated) To hang (a picture on exhibition) near the top of a wall, where it cannot easily be seen; (by extension) to put (something) in an undesirable place.
      Antonym: floor
    3. (slang, dated) To toss (something) upwards; specifically, to flip (a coin).
      • 1894, C[ornelis] Stoffel, “Preface”, in Studies in English, Written and Spoken: For the Use of Continental Students (First Series), Zutphen, Gelderland, Netherlands: W. J. Thieme & Co.; London: Luzac & Co., →OCLC, footnote 1, page IX:
        In ‘skying’ a coin for the purpose of deciding a point at issue between two parties, two methods are in vogue: there is either the ‘slow torture’ of spinning the coin thrice, the decision to go against the tosser-up, if the other party, twice out of the three times, guesses right on which side the coin shall fall; or, the ‘sudden death’ method in which one toss is decisive; […]
    4. (sports)
      1. To clear (a high jump bar, hurdle, etc.) by a large margin.
      2. (ball games) To hit, kick, or throw (a ball) extremely high.
    5. (obsolete) To raise (the price of an item on auction, or the level of the bids generally) by bidding high.
  2. (intransitive)
    1. To move quickly, as if by flying; to fly; also, to escape, to flee (especially by airplane).
    2. (sports)
      2. (ball games) To hit, kick, or throw a ball extremely high.
      3. (rowing) To raise an oar too high above the water.

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “skī(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ Compare “sky, n.1”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2021; “sky, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. ^ “sky, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020; “sky, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Danish

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Pronunciation

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This entry needs an audio pronunciation. If you are a native speaker with a microphone, please record this word. The recorded pronunciation will appear here when it's ready.

Etymology 1

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Possibly from Middle Low German schūwe, schū, from Proto-West Germanic *skeuh. Compare English shy and German scheu.

Adjective

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sky (neuter sky, plural and definite singular attributive sky)

  1. shy
Synonyms
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References

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Etymology 2

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From Old Danish sky, from Old Norse ský, from Proto-Germanic *skiwją (“cloud, cloud cover”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH- (“to cover, conceal”).

Noun

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sky c (singular definite skyen, plural indefinite skyer)

  1. cloud
Inflection
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Declension of sky
common
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative sky skyen skyer skyerne
genitive skys skyens skyers skyernes

References

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Etymology 3

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From French jus, from Latin iūs (“gravy, broth, sauce”). The Danish word was probably borrowed via German Jus or Schü, pronounced [ˈʃyː], with a regular substitution of German /ʃ/ with Danish /sk/.

Noun

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sky c (singular definite skyen, not used in plural form)

  1. gravy, stock (a kind of soup)
  2. jelly (made of gravy)
  3. (cooking) aspic

References

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Etymology 4

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Possibly from Middle Low German schūwen, derived from the adjective.

Verb

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sky (imperative sky, present skyr or skyer, past skyede, past participle skyet)

  1. To shun.

References

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Middle English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Old Norse ský, from Proto-Germanic *skiwją. Doublet of skew.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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sky (plural skyes)

  1. The atmosphere or sky; that which lies above the ground.
  2. A cloud or mist (mass of water droplets).
  3. (rare, astronomy) A certain layout or part of the sky.
  4. (rare, physiology) Clouds in urine.

Descendants

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  • English: sky
  • Scots: sky, skie, skey, ske
  • Yola: skee, skir (verb)

References

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Norwegian Bokmål

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Etymology 1

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From Middle Low German schuwe.

Adjective

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sky (neuter singular sky, definite singular and plural sky or skye, comparative skyere, indefinite superlative skyest, definite superlative skyeste)

  1. shy
Synonyms
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Etymology 2

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From Old Norse ský, from Proto-Germanic *skiwją (“cloud, cloud cover”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH- (“to cover, conceal”).

Noun

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sky f or m (definite singular skya or skyen, indefinite plural skyer, definite plural skyene)

  1. cloud
    Det er mange skyer på himmelen.
    There are many clouds in the sky.
Derived terms
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Etymology 3

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Possibly from Middle Low German schuwen

Verb

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sky (imperative sky, present tense skyr, simple past skydde, past participle skydd, present participle skyende)

  1. To avoid, shun.
Derived terms
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References

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Norwegian Nynorsk

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle Low German schuwe.

Adjective

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sky (neuter singular sky, definite singular and plural sky or skye, comparative skyare, indefinite superlative skyast, definite superlative skyaste)

  1. shy

Etymology 2

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From Old Norse ský. Akin to English sky.

Noun

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sky f (definite singular skya, indefinite plural skyer, definite plural skyene)

  1. cloud
Derived terms
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Etymology 3

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Possibly from Middle Low German schuwen

Verb

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sky (present tense skyr, past tense skydde, past participle skydd or skytt, passive infinitive skyast, present participle skyande, imperative sky)

  1. To avoid, shun.
Derived terms
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References

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Old Swedish

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Etymology

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From Old Norse ský, from Proto-Germanic *skiwją.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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skȳ n

  1. cloud
  2. sky

Declension

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Declension of sky (strong ja-stem)
neuter singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative skȳ skȳit skȳ skȳin
accusative skȳ skȳit skȳ skȳin
dative skȳi skȳinu, skȳeno skȳiom skȳiomin, skȳiomen
genitive skȳs skȳsins skȳia skȳianna

Descendants

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Scots

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Etymology

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From Middle English sky, from Old Norse ský.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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sky (plural skies)

  1. sky
    It's a fair braw sky we'v got the nicht. It's quite a beautiful sky we've got tonight.
  2. daylight (especially at dawn)
    A wis up afore the sky. I was up before sunrise.
  3. skyline, outline against the sky (especially of a hill)
    He saw the sky o a hill awa tae the west. He saw the outline of a hill in the west.

Derived terms

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Verb

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sky (third-person singular simple present skies, present participle skies, simple past skyin, past participle skiet)

  1. (of weather) To clear up.
  2. To shade the eyes with the hand (so as to see better).
  3. To hold up to the light and examine.

Swedish

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Swedish Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia sv

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Old Swedish skȳ, from Old Norse ský, from Proto-Germanic *skiwją, compare English sky.

Noun

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sky c

  1. (countable) sky
    högt upp i skyn
    high up in the sky
  2. (countable) cloud
    Synonym: moln
    tunga skyar
    heavy skies
    lätta skyar
    light clouds
    regnskyar
    rainy skies ("rain skies")
Usage notes
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Similar to English sky in somewhat ambiguously referring to clouds in certain expressions, often in the plural. Like in English, native speakers are likely to think "sky" rather than "cloud" and unconsciously process the plural as idiomatic. The usual modern word for cloud is moln.

Declension
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Declension of sky
nominative genitive
singular indefinite sky skys
definite skyn skyns
plural indefinite skyar skyars
definite skyarna skyarnas
See also
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Etymology 2

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From French jus.

Noun

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sky c

  1. (uncountable, cooking) the liquid that remains in a frying pan after the fried meat is ready
Declension
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Declension of sky
nominative genitive
singular indefinite sky skys
definite skyn skyns
plural indefinite — —
definite — —
Derived terms
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Etymology 3

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From Middle Low German schǖwen, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *skiuhijan. Compare origin of skygg.

Verb

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sky (present skyr, preterite skydde, supine skytt, imperative sky)

  1. to avoid (due to fear, disgust, or the like), to shun
    Han skyr inga medel
    He will stop at nothing
    (literally, “He shuns no means”)
Conjugation
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Conjugation of sky (weak)
Active Passive
Infinitive sky skys
Supine skytt skytts
Imperative sky —
Imper. plural1 skyn —
Present Past Present Past
Indicative skyr skydde skys skyddes
Ind. plural1 sky skydde skys skyddes
Subjunctive2 sky skydde skys skyddes
Participles
Present participle skyende
Past participle skydd
1 Archaic. 2 Dated. See the appendix on Swedish verbs.
Derived terms
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See also
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References

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