The First Skates Were Made of Animal Bone
A skater moves on ice or wheels. The word came from Dutch, and the earliest known skates were shaped from the leg bones of horses and cattle.
A skater travels on ice skates or roller skates. The oldest skates archaeologists have found are not metal but bone: polished animal leg bones strapped to the foot, used across northern Europe for thousands of years. They did not cut into the ice — the skater pushed along with a pole, like punting. The Dutch gave English both the word and the modern blade.
- Someone who skates. *A figure skater.*
- A skateboarder. *Skaters in the plaza.*
- Speed skater — a racer on ice. *Dutch speed skaters.*
- Water skater — an insect that walks on water. *Pond skaters.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verb | skate | Skate carefully. |
| Past | skated | They skated home. |
| Agent | skater | A young skater. |
| Noun | skate | A pair of skates. |
| Compound | skateboard | A wooden skateboard. |
- The skater landed the jump cleanly.Figure skating.
- Skaters gather under the bridge every evening.Skateboarding.
- He skated over the difficult part of the question.Figurative: avoided it.
Skate idioms
- Skate over — deal with something too lightly
- Skate on thin ice — take a dangerous risk
- Skate by — get through with minimal effort
- Cheapskate — a mean person, from an unrelated old sense of skate
- Get your skates on — hurry up, British informal
From Dutch *schaats*, taken into English in the 1600s. English mistook the singular for a plural and formed a new singular *skate*, then added -er for the person.
Were early skates really made of bone?
Yes. Polished animal leg bones bound to the feet have been found across northern Europe, some thousands of years old.
Why does English say skate and not schaats?
English borrowed the Dutch word, heard the final s as a plural marker, and created a new singular by removing it.