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

… 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.

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.

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