• skullduggery •
Printable Version Pronunciation: skêl-dêg-ê-ree • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, mass (no plural)
Meaning: Chicanery, shadiness, underhandedness, jiggery-pokery, hanky-panky.
Notes: Given the sense of the original word (see History), current meaning of this Good Word is very mild, even a little facetious as a result of its ridiculous look and sound. In the US, one of the Ls is often omitted (skulduggery) but most dictionaries now assert that skullduggery is the preferred spelling. Just remember that this word has double double consonants.
In Play: Using skullduggery instead of sterner words like moral turpitude or deceit is a way refer to moral depravity more obliquely, more tongue-in-cheek: "What sort of skullduggery did you have to resort to in order to get Able Mann take the job you offered him?" But not always: "The Watergate burglary was but the final twist of a long history of political skullduggery leading up to the US elections of 1972."
Word History: Today's Good Word is probably an alteration of Scots sculduddery "obscenity, fornication". No one has any idea where this word comes from. When I hear this word though I think of pirates and buccaneers, whose symbol was the skull and crossbones and who were known for digging holes (dig, dug, dug) to bury treasure. Since skullduggery approaches their behavior more than the meaning of skullduddery, I think piratical influence must have been involved in the development of this word's meaning. (It would have been skullduggery had Rodger Collins kept this word to himself and not suggested, as he did, that we run it as one of our Good and funny Words.)
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