Skell
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Skell, as a stereotypical or archetypal designation, refers to a person who is homeless, vagrant or derelict. It is often used to connote such a person who is habitually engaged in small-time criminal activity, especially by one working as a con artist or panhandler.
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[edit] History
In its modern form, the use of skell as a slang term in the United States appears to date only from the 1970s, most especially from New York. The word has sometimes been used by the police officer characters on the tv show NYPD Blue.
[edit] Origin
Possible origins for the word include:
- The seventeenth-century British slang word skelder, a noun and verb which referred to a professional beggar, especially one who falsely pretended to be a wounded former soldier to gain sympathy; more generally, it could be used for a swindler or cheat. An early recorded use is by Ben Jonson, from his play Poetaster, written in 1601: 'An honest decayed commander, cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seene in a bawdie house.'
- The Dutch schelm, a word meaning a villain or rogue.
- The Latin scelus, meaning a wicked deed or wickedness.
- An abbreviation of skeleton.
[edit] Trivia
Crow T. Robot referred to Michael J. Nelson as a skell in a sketch during episode 905 of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
