means A garment that hangs from the waist and covers part or all of the legs without separating them, or the act of going around the edge of something rather than through it.

from From the Old Norse 'skyrta,' meaning a shirt or kind of tunic — brought ashore by Norse settlers and snug alongside its English cousin 'shirt,' which shares the same Germanic root. The two words split duties over time: one rose to clothe the chest, the other sank to wrap the lower body. That same root carries the sense of something short or cut, which is why 'skirt' also came to mean an edge or border — and why, to 'skirt around' a problem is to travel its hem rather than cross its middle.