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# skittle

«skittle» in Mova's school dictionary: **A wooden or plastic bottle-shaped piece that players try…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

noun (a skittle, skittles); skittles (the game)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A wooden or plastic bottle-shaped piece that players try to knock down with a ball. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/skittle/#m1)

2) Skittles is the game played with them, an older cousin of ten-pin bowling. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/skittle/#m2)

3) (UK, informal) «Bowl over like skittles» or «knocked down like skittles» means many things falling quickly. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/skittle/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

A game word. Children play skittles in the garden or at a school fair; it is good for counting how many fell and how many stand. In The Wind in the Willows the animals and people of the old world play skittles in inns. Phrase: «Life is not all beer and skittles» (UK, old) means life is not all fun.

### examples

- We set up nine skittles at the end of the hall. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/skittle/#x1)
- Sam knocked down six skittles with one ball. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/skittle/#x2)
- Let's play skittles in the garden! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/skittle/#x3)
- The bowling ball scattered the skittles. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/skittle/#x4)
- The wind knocked the bins over like skittles. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/skittle/#x5)
- Life isn't all beer and skittles, said Grandad. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/skittle/#x6)

### note

Countable noun; the game «skittles» takes a singular verb: «Skittles is fun.» In maths: if there are 9 skittles and 6 fall, 9 − 6 = 3 are left standing. «Skittles» is also a brand of sweets; that is a name.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «skittle» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/skittle/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.