Skiffing is the lightest form of pruning involving as it does removal of a certain amount of growth above the previous pruning level.

It is closely related to bathmophobia, which is a fear of stairs or steep slopes, and climacophobia, which is a fear of stairs, climbing, or of falling down stairs.

… from the meditating warriors who held still at the foot of the dunes; in short, from these interior Arabs who constituted us, who relieved and surpassed us, and to whom we owe the Greek baptism of our vulgar Latinhood.

—and de letter say: 'It's getting dangerouser and dangerouser every minute over where de fighting is at.'