- skid (n.)
- c.1600, "beam or plank on which something rests," probably from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse skið "stick of wood" (see ski). A skid as something used to facilitate downhill motion (cf. skid row) led to figurative phrases such as hit the skids "go into rapid decline" (1920).
- skid (v.)
- 1670s, "apply a skid to (a wheel, to keep it from turning)," from skid (n.). Meaning "slide along" first recorded 1838; extended sense of "slip sideways" (on a wet road, etc.) first recorded 1884 (the noun in this sense is attested from 1907). The original notion is of a block of wood for stopping a wheel; the modern senses are from the notion of a wheel slipping when blocked from revolving.