Skelton


Also found in: Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Skel·ton

(skĕl′tən), John 1460?-1529.
English poet and scholar noted for his satires, including Speke Parrot (1521).
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Skelton

(ˈskɛltən)
n
(Biography) John. ?1460–1529, English poet celebrated for his short rhyming lines using the rhythms of colloquial speech
Skelˈtonic adj
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Skel•ton

(ˈskɛl tn)

n.
John, c1460–1529, English poet.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in classic literature ?
PERHAPS the best Morality of which we know the author's name is Magnificence, by John Skelton. But, especially after Everyman, it is dull reading for little people, and it is not in order to speak of this play that I write about Skelton.
John Skelton lived in the stormy times of Henry VIII, and he is called sometimes our first poet-laureate.
John Skelton, like so many other literary men of those days, was a priest.
The evils in the Church and in high places were as bad as ever, and Skelton, himself a priest, preached against them.
At first Wolsey, the great Cardinal and friend of Henry VIII, was Skelton's friend too.
Yet, although Skelton said he would not decry any good man or any good work, his spirit was a mocking one.
Yet although Skelton railed against the Cardinal and against the evils in the Church, he was no Protestant.
Wolsey was still powerful, and he made up his mind to silence his enemy, so Skelton found himself more than once in prison, and at last to escape the Cardinal's anger he was forced to take sanctuary in Westminster.
As many of Skelton's poems were thus about quarrels over religion and politics, much of the interest in them has died.
And this poem shows us that Skelton was not always bitter and biting.
But Martha Skelton would do everything, and it would be so much cheaper."
View in context
In an old book I find columns of notes about works projected at this time, nearly all to consist of essays on deeply uninteresting subjects; the lightest was to be a volume on the older satirists, beginning with Skelton and Tom Nash - the half of that manuscript still lies in a dusty chest - the only story was about Mary Queen of Scots, who was also the subject of many unwritten papers.
View in context