What's the difference between skittish and wanton?

Skittish


Definition:

  • (v. t.) Easily frightened; timorous; shy; untrustworthy; as, a skittish colt.
  • (v. t.) Wanton; restive; freakish; volatile; changeable; fickle.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Jason Conibear, market analyst at forex specialists, Cambridge Mercantile, argues that Obama will be breathing a sigh of relief, even though US economic growth is slowing: American consumers are getting skittish again, but with the giant economy's output still creeping upwards, politicians and policymakers will find the perfect excuse to do nothing.
  • (2) Bosnia were dreadfully vulnerable on their left with Lulic often drawn forwards, a situation not helped by the uncharacteristic skittishness of Emir Spahic, the left-sided centre-back, who misplaced a couple of passes in the opening 10 minutes and looked anxious throughout.
  • (3) Obama, who had been skittish about coming to Copenhagen at all unless it could be cast as a foreign policy success, looked visibly frustrated as he appeared before world leaders.
  • (4) As Shallow, he “pecks at the lines, nibbles at them like a parrot biting on a nut; for all his age, he darts here and there nimbly enough, even skittishly: forgetting nothing, not even the pleasure of Falstaff’s page, that ‘little tiny thief’.” But if Tynan was enamoured of Olivier, he was also alert to the miniaturist precision of Alec Guinness.
  • (5) The first episodes show a woman stumbling between responses: refusing punishing treatment that might prolong her life slightly; cartwheeling down corridors; deciding not to tell her family about the diagnosis; flashing her doctor; keeping her juvenile husband at arm's length; and trying desperately, skittishly, to fix her teenage son's brattish behaviour before it's too late.
  • (6) Cameron Peacock, market analyst at IG Markets, said the financial markets were in "skittish" mood.
  • (7) Assuming, as still seems likely, that it passes, the odds that the White House will get legislators – who'll already be skittish about how changes to the healthcare system might impact on their re-election chances – to swallow another big pill like that are slim indeed.
  • (8) For now, it seems the selling is confined to the more skittish market participants, but if the index moves much lower the quiet retreat could turn into an increasingly panicky rout.
  • (9) Factory's Happy Mondays bound together the exotic new dance rhythms with a groggy Lancastrian verse, and in the movement known as Madchester was born the commercialisation of the abstract, agitating spirit of Factory, and the spirited postmodern skittishness of Wilson.
  • (10) If they do not assert that clear control, these technology companies risk losing business – not only from skittish consumers, but also from corporate and foreign-government clients.
  • (11) He learnt the new motions, the vastly swaying skittishness and violence of the revenant rigs.
  • (12) Matip’s aerial prowess should help improve Liverpool’s ability to defend set-pieces and he is a sound tackler and tidy builder from the back, but what his team need most in the absence of further defensive recruits is an organiser who can somehow instil concentration and calmness into chronically skittish team-mates.
  • (13) Skittish, exasperating and endearing, yes, but never dull.
  • (14) Putting in some time behind the till of my family’s shop before Christmas reminded me that the customer is a skittish beast.
  • (15) I’m not surprised that some [backbenchers] are skittish, because there’s all this stuff in the ether and they don’t have a broad-based package to look at.” Turnbull appeared to step back from the GST proposal during the week, answering questions from Labor on the revenue measure during question time by saying no plans had been finalised.
  • (16) Speaking at a meeting of the Business Roundtable in Washington, Obama warned Republicans against “playing chicken with an $18tn economy” by threatening a shutdown, especially in “skittish” stock market conditions.
  • (17) His comments are likely to add to the volatility of already skittish markets.
  • (18) I had been warned that she had been skittish about agreeing to do media interviews, that she was concerned certain boundaries should not be crossed - which put me doubly on my guard.
  • (19) Zuckerberg himself made clear that he wasn’t going to loosen his reigns on Facebook, reassuring skittish shareholders that he would continue to serve as the company’s CEO “for many, many years to come”.
  • (20) Gliding was inhibited on very hydrophobic substrata and skittish on very hydrophilic surfaces.

Wanton


Definition:

  • (v. t.) Untrained; undisciplined; unrestrained; hence, loose; free; luxuriant; roving; sportive.
  • (v. t.) Wandering from moral rectitude; perverse; dissolute.
  • (v. t.) Specifically: Deviating from the rules of chastity; lewd; lustful; lascivious; libidinous; lecherous.
  • (v. t.) Reckless; heedless; as, wanton mischief.
  • (n.) A roving, frolicsome thing; a trifler; -- used rarely as a term of endearment.
  • (n.) One brought up without restraint; a pampered pet.
  • (n.) A lewd person; a lascivious man or woman.
  • (v. i.) To rove and ramble without restraint, rule, or limit; to revel; to play loosely; to frolic.
  • (v. i.) To sport in lewdness; to play the wanton; to play lasciviously.
  • (v. t.) To cause to become wanton; also, to waste in wantonness.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We simply do whatever nature needs and will work with anyone that wants to help wildlife.” His views might come as a surprise to some of the RSPB’s 1.1 million members, who would have been persuaded by its original pledge “to discourage the wanton destruction of birds”; they would equally have been a surprise to the RSPB’s detractors in the shooting world.
  • (2) He pointed out that the eighth amendment of the US constitution “prohibits the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain through torture, barbarous methods, or methods resulting in a lingering death”.
  • (3) The real offense, for which no one has been charged, is the wanton disregard for human life that Manning exposed.
  • (4) We’re back to those flappers, with their jobs and their knee-length skirts and their dangerous opinions about politics, or the girls of the 1960s destroying the traditional family by wantonly taking the pill.
  • (5) Long said: "This is not an attack on an individual or on a party, but a wanton attack on the democratic process.
  • (6) In the 1930s the Spanish city of Guernica became a symbol of wanton murder and destruction.
  • (7) The wanton slaughter of two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq and the severe and even lethal torture of Afghan detainees generated, at worst, shockingly short jail time for the killers and, usually, little more than letters of reprimand.
  • (8) What distinguishes games from books, or films, is that the dodgy sexual politics and wanton violence of one is used as a stick to bash them all.
  • (9) "The president commiserates with all the families who lost loved ones in the heinous attacks and extends his heartfelt sympathies to all those who suffered injuries or lost their properties during the wanton assaults on Bauchi and Kaduna States," said a statement.
  • (10) But that doesn't mean that halting and reversing the wanton growth of shorthaul flights is an act of class war.
  • (11) Here in Bristol we could use the old railway lines that used to thread their way into the city, before Beeching and Marples ripped them up – another example of wanton government lack of foresight.
  • (12) To the contrary, they are the inevitable by-products of societies that recruit every institution in service of defending even the most wanton abuses by the state.
  • (13) Later at university, there were nice Protestant ladies and wanton atheists; taxpayer-funded Guinness and Spear of Destiny .
  • (14) Three hours of sexual and pharmacological excess, wanton debauchery, unfathomable avarice, gleeful misogyny, extreme narcotic brinksmanship, malfeasance and lawless behaviour is a lot to take, and some have complained of the film's relentlessness, which, if understood in formal terms, I think may be one of its main aims.
  • (15) Humankind must become accountable on a massive scale for the wanton destruction of our collective home.
  • (16) Young children were expected to carry out gruelling domestic chores and were wantonly punished, she says.
  • (17) An influential Communist party journal has compared online rumours to Cultural Revolution-style denunciations and warned of the need to curb "wanton defamation" of authority, as China intensifies its campaign to control social media.
  • (18) What we are seeing in London tonight, the wanton vandalism, smashing of windows, has nothing to do with peaceful protest."
  • (19) On the periphery of all the wanton lust and questionable puns stands Evie (Antonia Thomas), who’s pretty, sweet and has a camera; the holy trinity for chumps like Dylan.
  • (20) Following release of the Mosul video showing wanton destruction of antiquities, there has been a lot of email traffic between Libyans working in archaeology and Arab-world representatives on the major international heritage bodies,” said David Mattingly, a professor at the University of Leicester, who has spent years excavating Roman ruins in Libya.