Meaning

noun a hasty flight

verb run away, as if in a panic

originFirst use appears c. 1861, in the New York Tribune. The word appeared and gained prominence in Civil War military contexts around 1861, and rapidly passing into more general use. Possibly an alteration of British dialect scaddle (“to run off in a fright”), from the adjective scaddle (“wild, timid, skittish”), from Middle English scathel, skadylle (“harmful, fierce, wild”), perhaps of North…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0