| 释义 |
▪ I. skin, n.|skɪn|
Forms: 3– skin (3, 7 skinn), 4–6 skyn (4 skiyn, 5 sckyn), skynn, 3–6 skynne, 4–7 skinne; 4–6 skine, skyne; 4 schin(ne, scinne, scyn, 4–5 scin.
[a. ON. skinn (Icel., Norw., and Sw. skinn, Da. skind) neut., for earlier *skinþ, related to OHG. scindan (MHG. schinden, schinten, G. schinden), MLG. schinden, schinnen, Du. schinden to flay, peel, etc. Cf. also G. dial. schind, schinde skin of fruit, obs. Flem. schinde bark, rind (Kilian).]
I.
1. a. The integument of an animal stripped from the body, and usually dressed or tanned (with or without the hair), or intended for this purpose; a hide, pelt, or fur; also occas., an article made of this.
In technical use the skins of the smaller animals (as sheep, calves, etc.) are distinguished from the hides of the larger (as oxen).
c1200Ormin 3210 Hiss girrdell wass off shepess skinn. a1300Cursor M. 3677 Wit a rugh skin sco hidd his hals. a1340Hampole Psalter cl. 4 Taburn is made of a dryid scyn. 1390Gower Conf. II. 359 His gulion, Which of the Skyn of a Leoun Was mad. 1474Caxton Chesse iii. iii. (1883) 93 The Notayres skynners coryours and cardewaners werke by skynnes and hydes. 1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 276 These be wolues in lambes skynnes. 1592Timme Ten Eng. Lepers K ij, They have the skinne of the Hyena, which..will drawe the haire from the skinne of other beastes to it. 1617Moryson Itin. i. 173 Guilded leather.., three skins whereof were commonly sold for a Crowne. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iii. 588 Skins of Beasts, the rude Barbarians wear. 1750tr. Leonardus' Mirr. Stones 82 Some say, it should be wrapt in the skin of a calf. 1837W. Irving Capt. Bonneville II. 72 In a little while the skins began to make their appearance, a few at a time; they were laid down in the lodge. 1879Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 349/1 Beneath is stretched a leather apron, or ‘skin’, to catch the filings.
b. In phrases, esp. those (a) denoting premature action or too confident anticipation.
(a)1567Cal. Scott. Papers (1900) II. 392 Theye coulde not marchaundyze for the beares skynne before they had hym. 1577F. de Lisle's Legendarie E viij, Selling the beares skinne which yet they had not taken. 1599Shakes. Hen. V, iv. iii. 93 The man that once did sell the Lyons skin While the beast liu'd, was kill'd with hunting him. 1641in Rushw. Hist. Coll. (1721) IV. iii. 436 We must not dispose of the Bears Skin till the Bear be Dead. 1835Lytton Rienzi v. iii, Are ye dividing the skin while the lion lives? 1858Costello Millionaire Mincing Lane xvii. 146 That reckoning which sells the skin of the bear before the beast is captured. 1899Westm. Gaz. 30 Nov. 5/2, I do not like to divide the skin before we have caught the bear.
(b)1570Cecil Papers (Hist. MSS. Comm.) I. 489 You can have no more of the cat but the skin. 1582T. Watson Poems (Arb.) 96 Besides his Skinne, the Fox hath nought to pay. 1647Trapp Comm. Rom. iv. 6 Every Fox must pay his own skin to the flaier.
c. slang. (See quots.)
1785Grose Dict. Vulgar T., Skins, a tanner. a1790H. T. Potter New Dict. Cant & Flash (1795) 53 Skin, a purse. 1812J. H. Vaux Flash Dict., Skin, a purse, a money bag. [Hence in later slang Dicts.]1821D. Haggart Life 15 Young McGuire had taken some skins with a few shillings in each. 1856Mayhew Gt. World London iii. (Farmer), Abstracting skins from gentlemen's pockets. 1902S. Clapin New Dict. Americanisms 365 Skin... A purse; a pocket-book. 1935A. J. Pollock Underworld Speaks 107/1 Skin, a pocketbook or wallet. 1936J. Curtis Gilt Kid xii. 137 Proper jobs I mean. Not nicking skins from blokes what are lit up. 1955D. W. Maurer in Publ. Amer. Dialect Soc. xxiv. 114 Synonymous terms [of billfold] are hide, skin, or poke.
d. The integument of a bird or mammal, which is preserved but not mounted.
1840W. Swainson Taxidermy i. iii. 84 The preservation of birds in skins, or, more properly, in an unmounted state, is, above all others, the best for scientific purposes. 1888Encycl. Brit. XXIII. 90/1 Powders consisting of tannin, pepper, camphor, and burnt alum are sometimes used for ‘making skins’, but they dry them too rapidly for the purposes of ‘mounting’... When ‘skins’ only are to be made for the cabinet, it is sufficient to fill the head and neck with chopped tow, [etc.]. 1964G. Corbet in H. N. Southern Handbk. Brit. Mammals i. 117 There are two current methods of preparing study skins, resulting in ‘round’ and ‘flat’ skins respectively. The round skin, in which the skin is filled to simulate the shape of the body, is the traditional method..but flat skins are now usually preferred.
e. spec. A piece of sealskin or the like attached to the running surface of a ski to prevent slipping backwards during climbing. Also called climbing skin. Usu. pl.
1924E. C. Richardson ‘Shilling’ Ski-Runner (ed. 3) 11 Sealskins..are useful where long, unbroken ascents are to be made. By far the best kind are those which are stuck temporarily to the bottom of the ski... They are called, after their inventor, ‘Sohm’ skins. 1924K. Furse Ski-Running 39 Skins are used for climbing uphill on tour. They consist of long strips of sealskin, which are attached to the running surface of the Skis. 1948H. Innes Blue Ice vii. 192 The Norwegians use different waxes, not skins, for climbing through snow. 1966M. Woodhouse Tree Frog xvi. 123 The back room, damp and musty with stored rugs and climbing skins. 1980J. Cartwright Horse of Darius xii. 175 He fastened his skis, attached some skins and made the climb.
2. a. A complete hide of a sheep, calf, etc., or a part of one, specially prepared as parchment or vellum and used for writing or painting upon.
Cf. Icel. skinn parchment, and -skinna used in the names of manuscripts.
1340Ayenb. 44 Betere may ech man rede þe ilke zenne and þe oþre ine þe boc of his inwyt þanne ine ane ssepes scinne. a1375Minor Poems Vernon MS. xlvii. 308 He wrot so faste til þat he want, For his parchemyn-skin was so scant. c1489Caxton Sonnes of Aymon xi. 280 This Pygwade had well herde all that the kyng yon had sayd, & wrote it in a skynne of parchemente. 1583Stubbes Anat. Abus. ii. (1882) 32 A whole skin of parchment, and some⁓times 2. or 3. skins will hardly serue. 1649Bp. Hall Cases Consc. iii. x. (1654) 274 It is not a small skin that would containe that Tome. 1679–88Secr. Serv. Money Chas. & Jas. (Camden) 65 Writing, flourishing, and embellishing one large skinn of vellom with his said Majesties armes. 1738Chambers Cycl. s.v. Parchment, The Persians of old..wrote all their records on skins. 1861Reade Cloister & H. lx, The very skin of vellum Gerard had longed for. 1870E. Peacock Ralf Skirl. I. 1 The ponderous deed of eight skins of parchment.
b. U.S. slang. A dollar.
1930[see by prep. 33 e]. 1950[see lip n. 3 d]. 1976R. B. Parker Promised Land xx. 121, I got a buyer with about a hundred thousand dollars..a hundred thousand skins.
3. A vessel made of the hide of a small animal, such as a sheep or goat, and used for holding or carrying liquids, etc.
1547Boorde Introd. Knowl. xxx. (1870) 199 You shall draw your wyne out of one of the legges of the skyne. 1683Lond. Gaz. No. 1867/6 His Coach [was] visited, and a little Skin of Wine..taken out of it. 1745P. Thomas Jrnl. Anson's Voy. 54 We brought..Tar one Skin. 1835Sir J. Ross Narr. 2nd Voy. xl. 530 A native drawing two skins of oil. 1846Edin. Rev. LXXXIV. 175 The best Xeres that ever smacked of the skin. 1879Froude Cæsar iv. 40 [The army] carried its water supplies with it in skins.
fig.1874G. C. Hutton in Oliver Life (1910) viii. 82 You cannot keep Christianity in the old bottles of Constantine. It is continually bursting the legislative skins.
4. Chiefly Jazz. (a) A drum-head; (b) slang, a drum. Usu. pl.
1927Melody Maker Aug. 756/1 Moisture from the breathing of the dancers will also condense on your side drum and the skins absorb this immediately. 1938Manch. Guardian Weekly 2 Sept. 188/3 The swing musicians called ‘cats’ play..‘skins’ (drums) and ‘woodpiles’ (xylophones). 1945L. Shelly Jive Talk Dict. 21 Beatin' the skins, striking the drums. 1980Musicians Only 26 Apr. 12/5 They come in with skins with holes in.
II.
5. a. The continuous flexible integument forming the usual external covering of an animal body; also, one or other of the separate layers of which this is composed, the derma or epidermis.
1340Ayenb. 81 Ac oure eȝen byeþ fyeble, þet ne zyeþ bote þet skin wyþ-oute. c1384Chaucer H. Fame iii. 1229 Marcia that lost her skyn Bothe in face, body, and chyn. c1430Two Cookery-bks. 11 Pyke a-way clene þe bonys an þe Skyn, an bray hym in a morter. 1486Bk. St. Albans e iij b, All [animals] that bere skyne and talow and Rounge. 1508Dunbar Tua Mariit Wemen 93 To see him scart his awin skyn grit scunner I think. 1542Boorde Dyetary xvii. (1870) 276 Refrayne from etynge of the skynnes of fysshe and flesshe, & bornet meate. 1600J. Pory tr. Leo's Africa v. 237 Their women are white, hauing blacke haires and a most delicate skinne. 1661Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. Isagoge b, The skinne in the seahorse is so thick, that speares may be made thereof. 1704F. Fuller Med. Gymn. (1711) 201 The true Skin, and all its innumerable Glands. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) II. 56 The skin of children newly brought forth, is always red. 1845Budd Dis. Liver 92 By circumscribed œdema, or a slight blush on the skin. 1880Day Fishes Gt. Brit. I. p. xx, The skin or tegumentary system may be entirely or partially scaleless.
Prov.141926 Pol. Poems 70 It is worthy he smerte and be wo, Þat of his owen skyn wole kerue a thong.
b. fig. (See quots.)
Quot. 1579 echoes Persius Sat. v. 116 ‘veterem pelliculam retines’, which Cooper (1565) renders ‘thou art the olde man still; thou hast still thine olde skinne’.
1579Tomson Calvin's Serm. Tim. 133/1 We shall be alwayes in part lead away with our old skin, and there will be great remnants of the old man in vs. 1632Massinger & Field Fatal Dowry ii. ii, They skip into my lord's cast skins some twice a year. 1828Lytton Pelham xxxiv, That great epoch, when vanity casts off its first skin. 1856Mayhew Gt. World London 39 The wealth in which the merchants of Rag Fair deal..is merely the offal of the well-to-do—the skins sloughed by gentility.
c. Without article, as a material.
1813Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. (1814) 88 When skin is exposed to solutions containing tannin, it slowly combines with that principle.
d. The bare (human) skin.
1922Joyce Ulysses 748, I in my skin hopping around. 1956H. Gold Man who was not with It (1965) xvi. 142, I asked her to bring her swimming clothes..because we were not to swim in our skins today. 1976Western Mail (Cardiff) 27 Nov., The great day dawned, Wales v Africa, Wales in skins and Jack Sharkey's and S. Africa in white (skins meant no jerseys).
e. U.S. Blacks' slang. The skin of the palm of the hand, as making contact in shaking or slapping hands in friendship or solidarity. Freq. in phr. to give (some) skin, imp. gimme some skin (also as n.).
1942Z. N. Hurston in A. Dundes Mother Wit (1973) 223/2 ‘Gimme some skin!’ ‘Lay de skin on me, pal!’ Sweet Back grabbed Jelly's outstretched hand and shook hard. 1944D. Burley Handbk. Jive 85 The act of ‘Gimme-some-skin’ involves some theatricals, an intricate sense of timing, plenty of gestures. 1967Harper's Mag. Nov. 62/2 Once—when I came in on the break behind him at precisely the right point—Pops gave me some skin. He reached out his dark old hand..and I turned my hand, palm up... Pops lightly brushed my open palm in a half-slap, the jive set's seal of approval. 1972B. G. Cooke in T. Kochman Rappin' & Stylin' Out 33 The gestural expressions of ‘giving skin’ and ‘getting skin’ are very common in the black community. 1974H. L. Foster Ribbin', Jivin', & Playin' Dozens iv. 119 The viewer of TV sporting events will often observe black athletes, and whites too now, giving skin after a home run, a touch⁓down, or at the start of a basketball game.
6. In allusive phrases:
a. Denoting oppressive or severe treatment, or summary punishment.
c1380Wyclif Wks. (1880) 73 Þus, as god seiþ of tyrauntis, þei taken here skyn fro þe bak. 1399Langl. Rich. Redeles ii. 32 Þey plucked the plomayle from þe pore skynnes. Ibid. 126 Ȝe..plucked and pulled hem anon to þe skynnes. 1549Latimer 3rd Serm. bef. Edw. VI (Arb.) 96 She can bringe the Iudges skynne ouer hys eares. Ibid. 97 He wyll for wyddowes sakes..plucke ye Iudges skinnes ouer theyr heades. 1621T. Williamson tr. Goulart's Wise Vieillard 55 Many..who in regard of their age,..being esteemed as dead men, haue made young men to tremble and quake, who earst purposed to plucke their skin ouer their eares.
b. skin and bone(s), denoting extreme emaciation or leanness. Also, a very lean person. Hence skin-and-bony adj. Also skin and grief.
c1430Hymns Virgin (1867) 73 Ful of fleissche Y was to fele, Now..Me is lefte But skyn & boon. a1548Hall Chron., Edw. V, 16 b, In..whose reigne she dyed, when she had nothyng but a reueled skynne and bone. 1562J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 134 Yet art thou skyn and bone. 1617Moryson Itin. i. 251 My self being nothing but skin and bone, as one that languished in a Consumption. c1643Ld. Herbert Autobiog. (1824) 22 She languished and pined away to skin and bones. 1748Richardson Clarissa VII. 201 Her features are so regular..that were she only skin and bone, she must be a beauty. 1827Perils & Captivity (Constable's Misc.) 224 We arrived, extenuated and reduced to skin and bone. 1886H. Baumann Londinismen 180/2 Skin-and-bones.., skin-and-grief..haut und knochen, dürre Person. 1888W. D. Lighthall Young Seigneur 73 ‘Heh, heh, heh!’ cried an old skin-and-bones. 1906[see gramophone]. 1912D. H. Lawrence Let. 24 Dec. (1962) I. 172 They want me to have form: that means, they want me to have their pernicious ossiferous skin-and-grief form, and I won't. 1935C. Day Lewis Time to Dance 61 You silly great fulminating bogeyman! You're nothing but a laugh and a daft skin-and-bony man. 1955G. Greene Loser takes All i. vii. 43 The horse was all skin and bone and I had forgotten that the road was uphill. 1981B. Granger Schism i. 9 The old man..was just skin and bones. Maybe they could fatten him up.
c. to sleep in a whole skin, etc., to escape being wounded, to remain uninjured.
1555J. Proctor Hist. Wyat's Rebellion 45 The common saiynge, Good to slepe in a whole skinne. 1596Nashe Saffron Walden Wks. (Grosart) III. 114 The foole is crafty inough to sleepe in a whole skin. 1600Holland Livy xxxii. xxi. 823 b, To enter into no armes at all, to sit still and sleepe in a hole skin. 1694Echard Plautus 110 Begon in a moment, as you hope to sleep in a whole skin. 1704J. Pitts Acc. Moham. ii. 16 The Algerines are a very timorous sort of People, willing to sleep in a whole Skin. 1813Southey March to Moscow x, He was besides in a very great fright, For a whole skin he liked to be in. 1897W. E. Norris Marietta's Marriage xliii, We'll assume..that your anxiety to keep a whole skin justified you in taking to your heels.
†d. as the skin between one's brows, etc., used to emphasize the force of an adjective. Obs.
1575Gamm. Gurton v. ii. 121, I am as true, I wold thou knew, as skin betwene thy browes! 1599B. Jonson Ev. Man out of Hum. ii. i, Punt. Is he magnanimous? Gent. As the skin between your brows, sir. 1614― Barth. Fair iv. iii, Tou shalt be as honesht as the skin between his hornsh. a1643Cartwright Ordinary v. iv, I am as honest as the skin that is Between thy Brows.
e. to the skin, through all one's garments; hence, thoroughly, completely. Also, leaving no clothing on the body.
(a)1582Allen Martyrdom Campion (1908) 84 After these iiij had been searched unto their skinnes, and nothing found upon them. 1605Shakes. Lear iii. iv. 7 This contentious storme Inuades vs to the skin. 1611Cotgr., Traversé,..wet through, or (as we say) to the skinne. 1764Foote Mayor of G. i. (1783) 14, I don't believe..that they were ever wet to the skin in their lives. c1885A. W. Pinero in M. R. Booth Eng. Plays of 19th Cent. (1973) IV. 338, I'm wet to the skin and frightfully hungry! 1938R. Finlayson Brown Man's Burden 60 It was useless to try and find shelter, and the two runaways were soaked to the skin in a minute. 1974S. Milligan Rommel 128 The rain had temporarily stopped... We were all soaked to the skin and bloody miserable.
(b)1613Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 749 The Sauages..giuing all to their naked skinne..for the trifles he gaue them. 1634Massinger Very Woman v. v, We were boarded, pillaged to the skin, and after Twice sold for slaves. a1639W. Whately Prototypes ii. xxxiv. (1640) 181 The Egyptians would rather sell themselves to the skinne, yea sell themselves and all, then they would..take corne by force.
f. out of one's skin, denoting excessive exertion, or more usually (with jump, etc.) extreme delight, excitement, high spirits, or surprise.
(a)1584B. R. tr. Herodotus i. 38 Hymselfe as one ready to leape out of hys skynne for joy,..declared [etc.]. 1616R. C. Times' Whistle (1871) 94 The marchant, if his gaines doe safe come in, Is with joy ready to leape out on's skinne. 1668H. More Div. Dial. iii. xxxvi. (1713) 283 How transported are my Spirits, that I am ready even to skip out of my skin for Joy! 1732Fielding Miser v. i, I am ready to leap out of my skin for joy. 1798Colman Blue Devils i. i, 'Twould make me jump out of my skin with joy. 1809Malkin Gil Blas x. vii, Scipio..was ready to jump out of his skin for joy at the sight of me. 1860Trollope Castle Richmond III. xiii. 246 So is we all ould frinds, an we're all glad—out of our skins wid gladness. 1891N. Gould Double Event xv. 101 The horse..looked in splendid condition, ‘fit to jump out of his skin’, to use a racing term.
(b)1592Nashe P. Penilesse Wks. (Grosart) II. 40 The souldiour may fight himselfe out of his skinne. 1865Trollope Belton Est. vii, Why should he be made..to drive the poor beast out of its skin?
g. by (or with) the skin of one's teeth, with difficulty, narrowly, barely.
In the original form with, etc., the phrase is a literal translation from the Hebrew text of Job xix. 20; the Vulgate and Septuagint render the passage differently.
1560Bible (Geneva) Job xix. 20, I haue escaped with the skinne of my tethe. 1647Clarendon Contempl. Ps. Tracts (1727) 510 He reckoned himself only escaped with the skin of his teeth, that he had nothing left. 1825J. Neal Bro. Jonathan I. 109 Skin o' my teeth, I guess, if it hadn't been for Watty boy. 1893Nation 9 Feb. 99/2 His eldest son was implicated in the robbery.., and came off by the skin of his teeth. 1894Sala Lond. Up to Date 66, I got in by the skin of my teeth.
h. to save one's skin, to save oneself from loss or injury.
1642Rogers Naaman Index, æquivocating with our conscience..for the saving of our owne skin, is abominable. 1692R. L'Estrange Fables liv. 54 Dangerous Civilities.., wherein 'tis a Hard Matter for a Man to Save, both his Skin, and his Credit. 1890W. Stebbing Peterborough viii. 155 A poltroon who was ever considering how to save his skin. 1898Doyle Tragedy Korosko v, He was taken prisoner..and had to turn Dervish to save his skin.
i. Miscellaneous phrases (see quots.).
For the Sc. skin and birn, see burn n.3 2 b.
a1592Greene Jas. IV, iii. i, Thou shalt both have thy skin full of wine and the rest of thy money. 1630S. Lennard tr. Charron's Wisd. ii. ii. (1670) 236 We must discern the skin from the shirt. c1680South Serm. (1715) I. 36 If Mens Religion lies no deeper than their Skin. 1731–8Swift Pol. Conv. 46 Why where should she be? You must needs know; she's in her Skin. 1770Gentl. Mag. XL. 560 To express the Condition of an Honest Fellow..under the Effects of good Fellowship, it is said that he [has]..Got his Skin full. 1790F. Burney Diary Feb., I shall pity those men when the book comes out!—I would not be in their skins! 1796Grose's Dict. Vulg. T., In a bad skin, out of temper, in an ill humour. 1828Carr Craven Gloss. s.v., ‘To be in another's skin,’ to be in his place or situation. a1850Rossetti Dante & Circle i. (1874) 221 Him who sticks so in his skin. Ibid. 224 Messer Angiolieri's slipped his skin. 1858Carlyle Fredk. Gt. xvi. ii. (1872) VI. 142 It is certain Voltaire was a fool..not to have a thicker skin. 1860G. J. Whyte-Melville Holmby House I. xi. 151 Lady Carlisle laughed under the skin. 1886G. B. Shaw How to become Musical Critic (1960) 115 The one [sc. actor] gets into the skin of one character: the other only puts on the clothes of twelve. 1896Daily News 1 June 3/2 Mr. Tree may be said..to have got into ‘the skin of the part’, as the French have it. 1916J. R. Towse Sixty Years of Theater xxiii. 361 In the church scene, Miss Rehan won her audience by a fine display of honest womanly indignation, but she never really ‘got into the skin’ of Beatrice. 1959M. Summerton Small Wilderness i. 11 He got under the skin of the rôle and lived it... He was given a small part in the spring production. 1963Listener 28 Mar. 564/2 Those who enjoy the fun of getting inside someone else's skin.
j. under the skin, in reality, as opposed to superficial appearances. Esp. in phr. sisters under the skin (after quot. 1896).
1896Kipling Seven Seas 193 For the Colonel's lady an' Judy O'Grady Are sisters under their skins! 1946A. Christie Hollow iii. 31 They were the same, sisters under the skin, Mrs. Pearstock from Tottenham and Mrs. Forrester of Park Lane. 1959[see impulse n. 6 c]. 1960P. Gallico Mrs Harris goes to New York ii. 24 Mrs Schreiber poured it all forth to her sympathetic sister-under-the-skin, Mrs Harris. 1960Economist 8 Oct. 149/1 The old ladies who booed him..are sisters under the skin to the dockers who met him with a placard curtly advising him to ‘drop dead, you bum’. 1975D. Francis High Stakes xi. 160 Merchant bankers are pirates under the skin. 1977Times 19 Apr. 14/2 Sub specie aeternitatis, you might say, the Richmond dustmen and Jimmy Edwards are brothers under the skin.
k. to get under (a person's) skin, (a) to affect the deep feelings of; to irritate, to annoy; (b) to come to an understanding of, to empathize with.
1896Ade Artie vi. 54 Say, Miller, if I was to beat his whole face off I could n't ketch even. He got way under the skin on me. 1927H. T. Lowe-Porter tr. T. Mann's Magic Mountain I. v. 300 What's the matter? Has any⁓thing got under your skin? 1927H. Crane Let. 12 Sept. (1965) 307, I think I really succeed in getting under the skin of this glorious and dying animal [sc. the Indian]. 1933F. Baldwin Innocent Bystander (1935) vii. 132 That pleased her, she had got under his skin, he had at least admitted something. 1938E. Bowen Death of Heart i. viii. 143 ‘That is why she annoys me so.’ ‘You once said she'd been very kind.’ ‘Indeed she has— that's her way of getting under my skin.’ 1942A. Christie Five Little Pigs i. iv. 32, I think you are interested in—character, shall we say?.. To get under the skin, as it were, of your criminal. 1948L. A. G. Strong Trevannion xvi. 297 ‘Aren't you perhaps afraid the inadequacy may be on your side?’.. ‘Damn you, Walter. You do get under a man's skin.’ 1972D. Delman Sudden Death iii. 58 Do I bug you, Mr Mathews? Do I get under your skin? 1977C. McCullough Thorn Birds xvii. 455, I can keep you, because I'll never let you get under my skin.
l. no skin off one's nose and varr. (colloq.), a matter of indifference to one.
1920S. Lewis Main Street xxv. 312 Go to it. No skin off my ear, Nat. Think I want to be fifth wheel in the coach? 1926― Mantrap viii. 95 If you think..that it's any skin off my nose to lose the pleasures of your company..you got another think coming. 1930Amer. Mercury Dec. 420/1 It ain't no skin off of Hymie's bugle. 1934J. O'Hara Appointment in Samarra vi. 158 Okay. No skin off my ass. 1938D. Baker Young Man with Horn i. iv. 30 It was no skin off Jeff what color his old lady painted the piano. 1955A. Miller View from Bridge 102 Don't thank me... It's no skin off me. 1960D. Lytton Goddam White Man v. 113 But it was no skin off my nose that she was dead. 1963Australasian Post 14 Mar. 51/2 If you want to yap on like a drongo in the DTs it's no skin off my bugle. Go ahead: be a gig! See if I care! 1966J. Porter Sour Cream v. 60 Our arrival was no skin off her nose and she didn't pay all that much attention to us. 1971B. Malamud Tenants 35 Make it like eight [o'clock] or around that if it's no skin off you. If I miss a day don't fret on it. 1972R. Milner in W. King Black Short Story Anthol. 378 Then Clyde said it was no skin off his ass. 1978L. Meynell Papersnake xiv. 188 It was no skin off my nose... My heart wasn't hurt, even if my pride was.
m. (here's to the) skin off your nose and varr.: used as a toast.
1925Fraser & Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 260 Here's to the skin off your nose: Your good health! 1936Wodehouse Young Men in Spats ii. 42 ‘Well, skin off your nose,’ said Pongo. ‘Fluff in your latchkey,’ said Barmy. 1949[see mud n.1 3]. 1959D. Eden Sleeping Bride ix. 85 Philip handed her a drink and she added, ‘Here's the skin off your nose.’
n. skin and blister, sister. Rhyming slang.
1925Fraser & Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 260 Skin and blister, sister. (Rhyming slang.) 1935G. Ingram Cockney Cavalcade x. 170, I saw your skin and blister last night. 1972G. F. Newman You Nice Bastard 348 Skin and blister, sister.
7. A membrane covering any internal part of an animal body.
gold-beater's skin: see gold-beater 1 b.
c1400Lanfranc's Cirurg. 169 Þe stomak & þe guttis is ordeyned a skyn, þat is clepid þe siphac. a1425tr. Arderne's Treat. Fistula, etc. 69 Swynez grese wele y-clensed of þe litel skynnez and smal y-kutted. c1475Pict. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 749 Hoc fren, the sckyn of the brayne. 1590P. Barrough Meth. Physick ii. ix. (1639) 84 If the skins [pleuræ] which be joyned all the length of the breast within be inflammate. 1668Culpepper & Cole Barthol. Anat. Introd., The internal Skin of the inner Cavities. 1702J. Purcell Cholick (1714) 7 The two Skins of the Mesentery. 1897Allbutt's Syst. Med. II. 1138 Skins may be expectorated abundantly.
8. Anything which resembles skin in nature or use; an outer coat or covering of anything.
a. The outer covering of certain fruits and vegetables; the peel or rind; also, the bark or rind of a tree or plant.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. clv. (Bodl. MS.), Plinius..seiþ þat frute of siliqua is swete:..and þe skynne þerof is yȝete. 1558Warde tr. Alexis' Secr. 22 b, You shal take the rootes of..wilde Mallow, and scrape from them cleane their skinne or barke. 1599Shakes. Hen. V, v. i. 56 The skinne [of the leek] is good for your broken Coxcombe. 1657R. Ligon Barbadoes (1673) 81 The body of this plant is soft,..and between the skins, water issues forth as you cut it. 1687A. Lovell tr. Thevenot's Trav. ii. 34 The Cucumbers are so good in Aleppo, that..the Francks also eat them green. skin and all. 1733W. Ellis Chiltern & Vale Farm. 116, I have often seen the very Skin, or Rind of the young Roots left behind in drawing. 1826Art of Brewing (ed. 2) 190 The moment the skin [of the apple] is first cut. 1862Miller Elem. Chem. Org. iii. §1 (ed. 2) 160 Red grapes may be made to yield a ‘white’ wine..; but if the skins be left in the fermenting mass [etc.]. 1874Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 511 Yellow pine timber..placed at first skin to skin, and afterward 2 feet apart.
b. A pellicle, a film. Also fig.
1576Fleming Panopl. Epist. 64 Those remedies whiche ought..to drawe a skinne ouer my wound. 1671Grew Anat. Pl. i. ii. (1684) 15 The Cuticle becomes a Skin; as we see in the growing of the Coats of Cheeses, of the Skin over divers Liquors, and the like. 1678Hobbes Decam. viii. 98 For the skin of the Bubble is Water. 1758Reid tr. Macquer's Chem. I. 385 In the same manner take off a second skin that will form on the surface of the Lead. 1793T. Beddoes Calculus, etc. 279 The heat of boiling water would not..produce a skin upon milk without the presence of air. 1831Brewster Optics xiii. 110 Covered with gauze or muslin, or with a skin of dried skimmed milk. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 81 It is this white solid substance which forms the thin skin on the surface of the water.
c. In miscellaneous uses (see quots.).
1611Shakes. All's Well ii. ii. 29 As fit..as the pudding to his skin. 1677Descript. Diamond Mines in Misc. Curiosa (1708) III. 243 The Diamonds..are very well spread, large Stones.., they have generally a bright Skin. 1763Museum Rust. I. 94 It enables the land..to come speedily to a good skin (as we term it), or coat of grass. 1875Dawson Dawn of Life ii. 12 If they [Laurentian hills] could be flattened out they would serve as a skin much too large for mother earth in her present state. 1894Nature 26 July 289 Observations hitherto made in the earth's outer skin.
d. The surface of a piece of cast or rolled metal.
1840Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl. III. 425/1 The removal of the exterior skin of a casting greatly increases the corrosive action of salt water and its combined air. 1869Rankine Machine & Hand-tools App. 54 It is used to form a hard and impenetrable skin to a piece of grey cast iron by the process called chilling.
e. Arch. The facing of a wall, in contrast to the material in the heart of it.
1884Mil. Engin. I. ii. 84 To have only a thin skin on the outside which could readily be knocked out by a crowbar. 1897Daily News 23 Nov. 6/5 The disintegrated condition of the inner masonry..rendered impossible the project..of replacing the inside masonry without disturbing the ‘skin’.
f. The outermost layer of a pearl.
1885Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 446/2 A pearl of the first water should possess, in jewellers' language, a perfect ‘skin’ and a fine ‘orient’. 1935L. Kornitzer Pearls & Men xix. 165 Keep on inspecting your pearl... When the blemish has been removed and a clean bright skin shows up, the worst is over. Smooth the skin with the finest emery paper you can obtain. 1976B. W. Anderson Gemstones for Everyman xxiii. 300 The finest cultured pearls have come from waters off the north Australian coast... The oyster used here is the large pinctada maxima. The resultant cultured pearls are also large and have very thick skins.
g. The outer or surface layers of a conductor, in which alternating current tends to be concentrated at high frequencies.
1891[see skin effect, sense 16 below]. 1891[see skin resistance, sense 16 below]. 1893J. J. Thomson Recent Res. Electr. & Magn. iv. 260 When the vibrations are very rapid the currents are practically confined to a thin skin on the outside of the conductor. 1943C. L. Boltz Basic Radio vii. 121 As the frequency is increased, the current is concentrated more and more in the outer layer—the ‘skin’—of a conductor. 1958J. Shepherd et al. Higher Electr. Engin. vii. 182 The effect increases with frequency, until at high frequencies the current is almost entirely in the ‘outer skin’ of the conductor.
h. slang. A tyre.
1954Rocky Mountain News (Denver) 2 Sept. in Amer. Speech (1956) XXXI. 305 Skin, a tire. 1977Hot Car Oct. 62/1 The answer is to run at the same pressure as the standard tyres, as by dropping the pressure any more than two pounds, you could cause sidewall failure, even in the big American skins.
i. A duplicating stencil; spec. the part that actually goes on the duplicator.
1965G. M. Beer Machines for Office Workers iv. 73 When the [correcting] fluid is applied [to the stencil] it will..seep through the incisions and make the carbon..adhere to the wax sheet; subsequently, at the duplicator, the carbon and backing sheets are removed, and in doing this it is..possible that the re-formed skin will also be detached so that both the incorrect letter, and the correction over it, appear on the duplicated sheet. 1972T. Lilley ‘K’ Section xl. 203 She had typed the ‘skin’; he would check it and then run off about four hundred copies. 1973Daily Tel. 25 Apr. 13/8 It was then discovered that one foolscap duplicating skin could produce only 10,000 copies. Four skins had to be typed and ‘run off’.
9. Naut.
a. The planking, or iron plating, covering the ribs or frame of a vessel.
(a)1769Falconer Dict. Marine (1780), Planking is some⁓times called ‘laying on the skin’, by the artificers. 1814Phil. Trans. CIV. ii. 287 The ribs are covered by a skin of greater or less substance from the extreme ends of them to the keel or back bone. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxxii. 444 The entire bulkhead was in a blaze, as well as the dry timbers and skin of the brig. 1867Smyth Sailor's Word-bk. 629 Skin, this term is frequently used for the inside planking of a vessel, the outside being the case. 1886Pall Mall G. 26 Aug. 4/1 The boat is most substantially constructed;..the skin being of mahogany three-eighths of an inch thick.
(b)1862Times 7 Mar., The 18 inches of wood between the armour and iron skin. 1883Nares Constr. Ironclad 5 The plates forming the outer and inner bottoms or skins are rivetted on.
b. (See first quot.)
1841Totten Naval Text Bk. 394 Skin, that part of a sail, when furled, which remains outside and covers the whole. c1860H. Stuart Seaman's Catech. 49 What cloth will you take for furling the spanker in a skin? The third from the leech. 1882Nares Seamanship (ed. 6) 134 Gather up the skin, shaking the slack sail well down into it.
c. transf. The outer covering of any craft or vehicle (or a constituent layer of this); esp. of an aircraft or spacecraft.
1921Flight XIII. 247/2 The skin below the chines is formed of two thicknesses of mahogany planking... One ply of varnished cotton fabric is laid between the mahogany skins. 1937Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XLI. 846 It is proposed to form the skin of the wing from two separated sheets of plywood. 1948‘N. Shute’ No Highway iii. 64 Here in the aircraft everything was firm and steady and secure; the even tremor of the engines, the faintly heard rush of air over the outer skin, these bred confidence. 1962G. Cooper in Into Orbit 29 The crews are equipped with..a fire axe for cutting through the capsule's skin. 1973Times 3 May 4/1 They found that the whole of the skin of the caravan was full of blocks of cannabis. 1973Terry & Baker Racing Car Design & Development vi. 135 Increasing safety-consciousness caused the FIA to stipulate that, for 1972, the outer skins of all Formula 1 monocoques had to have a maximum thickness of 16 swg. 1977D. Beaty Excellency i. 8 The company to which it [sc. an aircraft] belonged had been painted out... What remained against the silver duralumin skin was AN―.
10. a. Used as a term of contempt.
1825Jamieson Suppl., Skin, a term applied to a person, as expressive of the greatest contempt; as ‘Ye're naething but a nasty skin’. 1889Century Mag. Dec. 227 Occasionally he would refer to the president of the Off-shore Wrecking Company, his former employer, as ‘that skin’.
b. U.S. slang. = skinflint.
1900Ade More Fables 30 Some of the Folks..used to say that Henry was a Skin, and was too Stingy to give his Family enough to eat.
c. Without contemptuous implications: a person (of a specified kind). Chiefly Anglo-Ir.
1914Joyce Dubliners 152 Ah, poor Joe is a decent skin. 1939‘F. O'Brien’ At Swim-Two-Birds 166 A decent skin if ever there was one, said Slug with warmth, a man that didn't stint the porter. 1958B. Behan Borstal Boy iii. 258 These were lies..that Cragg was muttering about the Colonel, who wasn't a bad old skin at all,..since he got to know us. Ibid. 266 He seemed a decent old skin. 1966F. Shaw et al. Lern Yerself Scouse 22 Ee's a good skin, he is an agreeable fellow.
d. slang. A horse or mule.
1923E. Hemingway Three Stories & Ten Poems 32 They take the first batch of skins out to gallop. 1925Fraser & Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 260 A skin, a horse: mule. 1941Baker Dict. Austral. Slang 67 Skin, a horse, ‘generally the property of a professional wayfarer’.
e. slang. = skinhead 2 (b).
1970Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) 15 Apr. 7/1 You gotta decide what family you are going to join, the hairies or the skins. 1978R. Westall Devil on Road iv. 26 Those Midland sods must be crazy... I shouted the rudest things you can shout at skins. 1981Times 22 July 11/3 ‘There's good and bad skinheads,’ is as far as he will go... The picture is complicated: there are black skins, and there are non-violent skins... Certainly, many of the skins are thugs.
11. U.S. A card game in which each player has one card which he bets will not be the first to be matched by a card dealt from the pack.
1925Messenger Dec. 386/1 Playing ‘skin’ for matches. 1935Z. N. Hurston Mules & Men i. iii. 72 Ah played skin wid de Devil for mah life. 1973J. Scarne Scarne's Encycl. Games xvi. 310/1 The game of Skin is dead even; that is, dealer and player have exactly equal chances of winning. 1978Moore & Levine Big Paddle (1979) i. 15 Larsen loves skin. He'll go all over looking for a skin game.
12. the Skins, the nickname of the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards or, formerly, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers [properly a corruption of Inniskilling, assimilated to the n.].
1938R. Hayward In Praise of Ulster 235 The Indian Mutiny, South Africa and the Great War brought fresh glories to the valiant ‘Skins’. 1949St. J. Ervine Craigavon ii. xlvi. 233 The history of ‘the Skins’, the nickname of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, is rich with the jewels of courage. 1954L. MacNeice Autumn Sequel 67 The Skins have gone to Kenya with their trousers smartly creased. 1981J. Johnston Christmas Tree 25 Did you have a brother in the Skins?
III. attrib. and Comb.
13. Attrib.
a. In sense ‘of, in, connected with, the skin’, as skin care, skin colour, skin-disease, skin-flake, skin-furrow, skin-tint, skin-tissue, etc.
1615H. Crooke Body of Man 349 Betwixt the fleshy membrane and the skinne runne certaine vessels called Skin⁓veines. 1676Marvell Mr. Smirke Wks. (Grosart) IV. 16 'Tis a pitiful giddy..insect, ingendered..in every marish, can but run a pore thorow and give but a skinne-wound. 1769Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 57 Lay the feet over them the skin side up. 1864W. T. Fox Skin Dis. 15 The unchangeable elements, in the teaching of skin pathology. 1865Chambers's Encycl. VII. 363/1 Pellagra, at one time, the name of a loathsome skin-disease. 1880Nature 28 Oct. 605 On the Skin-furrows of the Hand. 1896Peterson's Mag. VI. 231/2 The skin-tints are less clear and warm than the same painter's ‘Bubbles’. 1930E. Pound XXX Cantos xv. 66 Skin-flakes, repetitions, erosions. 1944Horizon Mar. 172 The grey matter of the brain-rind was originally skin-tissue. 1949M. Mead Male & Female i. 19 The sensitivity of our skin-tissues. 1954V. Dengel All about You vi. 141 There are four points to proper, daily skin care. 1969V. J-R. Kehoe Technique Film & Television Make-Up (ed. 2) iii. 40 (heading) Skin care products. 1972Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 27 May 18/2 The idea of discrimination based on skin color is beyond their comprehension.
b. In sense ‘made, or consisting, of skin’, as skin-bag, skin-boat, skin-bottle, skin-canoe, skin-case, skin-cover, etc.
1593Nashe Christ's T. Wks. (Grosart) IV. 214 Our costly skinne-cases could keepe vs from consuming to dust. 1647J. Trapp Comm. Luke i. 59 A skin-bottle hanging in the smoke of filthy desires. 1761Ann. Reg. 128 This plate is to be moved round,..rubbing it with a small skin cushion. 1804W. Clark in Orig. Jrnls. Lewis & Clark Expedition (1904) I. 87 The Indians pass this river in Skin Boats which is flat and will not turn over. 1808Pike Sources Mississ. (1810) ii. 155 We..nearly compleated the frame of a skin Canoe. 1827J. Holmes Hist. United Brethren i. (ed. 2) 7 The skin-boat is..from forty to fifty feet long, and proportionally broad and deep. 1860Skin-bag [see atta]. 1871W. Morris in Mackail Life (1899) I. 246 Skin shoes tied about the ankle with neat thongs. 1895Scully Kafir Stories 123 He carried a small skin wallet slung to his waist. 1910W. de la Mare Three Mulla-Mulgars xxviii. 237 Having cut one of their skin⁓bags to pieces. 1954J. R. R. Tolkien Fellowship of Ring ix. 408 They drew the skin-covers over their boats. 1968G. Jones Hist. Vikings i. i. 17 These hunters, fishermen, and food-gatherers from the south..developed the skin-boat.
14. Objective.
a. With pres. pples., as skin-breaking, skin-clipping, skin-fitting, skin-piercing, skin-plastering, etc.
1593Nashe Christ's T. Wks. (Grosart) IV. 226 Those skin playstring Painters. 1599― Lenten Stuff ibid. V. 229 The curtaild skinclipping pagans. 1611Cotgr., Ratoire,..a skinne-breaking oyntment. 1784Cowper Task v. 141 Arrowy sleet, Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail. 1889J. J. Thomas Froudacity 40 The skin-discriminating policy induced..since the abolition of slavery. 1891M. M. Dowie Girl Karp. 244, I listened open-eyed to the herd's bear statistics, literally skin-clamming as these were. 1915D. H. Lawrence Rainbow iv. 91 She wore an elegant, skin-fitting coat. 1947Science News IV. 11 The men who went into enemy ports during the war wore skinfitting dresses.
b. With verbal ns., as skin-cutting, skin-grafting, skin-healing, etc.
1829Scott Anne of G. xxvii, The other three are picked men, who will not fear their skin-cutting. 1860Tomlinson Arts & Manuf. Ser. ii. Leather 25 When they are in the state of pelt, they are split... This is effected by means of a..machine called the ‘skin-splitting machine’. 1870Lancet 27 Aug. 306/2 (heading) Skin-grafting. Ibid. 22 Oct. 566/2 Mr. Francis Mason has performed the operation of skin grafting on granulating surfaces in nine instances. 1876Clinical Soc. Trans. IX. 30 During this period skin grafting was practised continuously. 1896Allbutt's Syst. Med. I. 380 Manipulations cannot be begun upon wounded surfaces until skin-healing is complete.
c. With agent-nouns, as skin-dealer, skin-dresser, skin-hunter, skin-preserver.
1858Simmonds Dict. Trade, Skin-dealer. Ibid., Skin-dresser, a currier, or furrier. 1890Daily News 9 Sept. 7/1 A brother..who carried on business as a furrier and skin⁓dresser. 1893Scribner's Mag. June 794/1 Wholesale slaughter by skin-hunters has nearly destroyed the Platypus in some districts. 1893Daily News 16 Feb. 5/5 No fewer than three taxidermists or skin preservers.
15. a. With past pples., as skin-built, skin-clad, skin-covered, skin-peeled, skin-spread.
a1661B. Holyday Persius (1673) 294 Who without heed..praise thee so, That (skin-peel'd asse!) thy self dost first cry, Hoe! 1823J. Baillie Poems 260 Whilst travellers from their skin-spread couches rise. 1846H. G. Robinson Odes of Horace ii. vi, Galesus' tide, Sweet to the skin⁓clad flocks. 1883Boats of World 27 Two examples of skin⁓built canoes. 1886Encycl. Brit. XXI. 113/2 Stilicho..planted the cruel Goths, his ‘skin-clad’ minions, in the very sanctuary of the empire. 1897Yeats Secret Rose 1 A large house with skin-covered wattles for the assembly. 1977Proc. R. Soc. Med. LXX. 234/1 Any open lesion is more dangerous than a skin-covered one.
b. Misc., as skin-like, skin-thin adjs., (to the) skinward adv.
1699R. L'Estrange Erasm. Colloq. (1711) 302 That wears Linen above, and woollen to the Skinward. 1796Withering Brit. Plants (ed. 3) I. 82 Skinny, or Skin-like.., tough, thin, and semi-transparent, like gold beater's skin. 1847–9Todd's Cycl. Anat. IV. i. 9 Gelatinous skin-like integument of the compound body. 1946W. de la Mare Traveller 12 Their skin-thin gills. 1966P. Scott Jewel in Crown iv. 171 The tough little shell of skin-thin masculinity that used to harden the outward appearance of the British military wives.
16. Special combs.: skin-beater slang (now Obs. or rare), in a jazz- or dance-band: a drummer; skin beetle U.S., a greyish-brown beetle of the genus Trox or a brown, hairy beetle of the family Dermestidæ, feeding on carrion or other organic material; skin-bone, an ossification in or of the skin; skin-book, a book made of parchment or vellum; skin-bound a., having the skin tensely drawn; hide-bound; skin-changer, one supposedly able to metamorphose himself or herself; skin cream, an oleaginous cosmetic preparation for care of the skin; skin depth Electr. [cf. sense 8 g], the distance from the surface of a conductor at which an electromagnetic wave of a given frequency is attenuated by a factor of 1/e (e = 2·718{ddd}); also fig.; skin-drying vbl. n. (Founding), drying of the surface of a greensand mould before casting; so skin-dried a.; skin-eater, a moth or beetle which infests and destroys prepared skins or furs; skin effect Electr., the tendency of an alternating current of high frequency to flow through the outer layers only of a conductor, resulting in an increase in effective resistance; skin-faro U.S. (see quot. and skin game); skin-finish, a particular style of chasing in bronze; skin flap Surg., a portion of living skin attached to the body by one edge so that it remains alive while it is used to close a wound after amputation, or in plastic surgery; skin-flick slang, a film of a pornographic type; skin-food, a preparation for improving the skin; skin friction, the friction developed between a solid and a fluid or gaseous body; esp. the friction between the surface of an aircraft or the like and the air; skin game, (a) (see quots. 1882, 1897); also transf. and fig.; (b) the pornography trade; (c) = sense 11 above; a game of this; skin graft, a piece of living skin which has been surgically transferred to a new site or to a different individual; also, the process of making such a transfer; also as v., to subject to the process of skin-grafting; skin house slang, (a) a gambling establishment; (b) an establishment providing pornographic entertainment; skin magazine colloq., a magazine containing nude photographs, a pornographic magazine; skinman, a skin-dresser or skin-dealer; skin-mark, a merchant's mark; skin-merchant, a skin-dealer (see also quot.); skin packaging, a method of packaging in which the article, placed on a backing plate which is to form part of the package, has a plastic film cover thermoformed on to it; skin pass Metallurgy, a final cold-rolling, effecting a small reduction in thickness, given to heat-treated strip steel in order to improve surface and mechanical properties; skin-plating, metal plating forming the skin of a vessel; skin-pop v. intr. (slang, orig. U.S.), to inject a drug subcutaneously (cf. main-line v.); so as n., the action of skin-popping; also fig.; hence skin-popper; skin-popping vbl. n.; skin potential, the electrical potential between different points on the skin, esp. as exhibited in the galvanic skin response; † skin-prints, tattoo-marks; skin resistance, † (a) = skin friction above; † (b) the resistance of the skin (sense 8 g) of an electrical conductor; (c) the electrical resistance of the skin of an organism; skin-scraper, a strigil; skin-search n. and v. (slang) = strip-search n. and vb. s.v. strip v.1 27 a; skin-sensory a., of or pertaining to the skin together with the sensory apparatus; skin test n., a test to see whether an immune reaction is elicited when a substance is applied to or injected into the skin; so skin-test v. trans., skin testing vbl. n.; skin tonic, a cosmetic astringent for the skin; skin trade (orig. U.S.), commerce in animals' skins; also fig.; also = skin game (b) above; skin-vision, the power of perceiving distinctions of light by means of the skin; skin-wool, wool taken from the skin of a dead sheep; skin-worm, the Guinea worm; skin-yard, a yard used for the working of skins.
1936Amer. Mercury XXXVIII. p. x/2 *Skin beater, the drummer man. 1953N.Y. Times Book Rev. 13 Sept. 33/3 Red, the reefer-smitten skin beater.
1842T. W. Harris Treat. Insects New Eng. Injurious to Vegetation 11 *Skin-beetles.., bone-beetles..act the useful part of scavengers. 1895J. H. & A. B. Comstock Man. Study Insects 559 The skin-beetles..are small or of medium size. 1942[see larder beetle s.v. larder1 3]. 1972Swan & Papp Common Insects N. Amer. xx. 436 Skin beetles feed on carrion, skin, feathers, and dung.
1862Cockayne St. Marherete Title-p., Now First Edited from the *Skin Books. 1883G. Stephens Bugge's Stud. North Myth. Examined 33 The oldest known Swedish skin⁓book dates after 1250.
1799Underwood Dis. Childhood (ed. 4) I. 130 Of which [tightness of the skin] further notice will be taken under the article of *Skin-bound. 1803Beddoes Hygëia ix. 136 Except in a very close room, I feel as if skin⁓bound for days together.
1927E. V. Gordon Introd. Old Norse 224 Berserks were probably named ‘bear-shirts’ from a superstition that they were ‘*skin-changers’. 1937J. R. R. Tolkien Hobbit vi. 121 He is a skin-changer. He changes his skin: sometimes he is a huge black bear, sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard.
1907Yesterday's Shopping (1969) 537/1 Violet oatmeal *skin cream. 1979P. Ferris Talk to me about England iii. 133, I appear to be missing a pot of special vitamin skin-cream.
1941J. A. Stratton Electromagn. Theory ix. 536 One may assume for conductors of arbitrary cross section that the field and current distributions near the surface differ negligibly from those near the surface of an infinite plane provided the radius of curvature is very much greater than the *skin depth. 1962Corson & Lorrain Introd. Electromagn. Fields x. 338 The skin depth decreases if either the conductivity σ, the permeability Km, or the frequency f increases. 1966Listener 5 May 653/3 Myshkin's apparent niceness and gentleness, his ridiculousness, are the surface, the skin depth of his assumed role.
1954*Skin-dried [see skin-drying vbl. n. below]. 1970E. Parkes et al. in K. Strauss Appl. Sci. in Casting Metals ix. 321 (heading) Skin dried and dry sand moulding.
1888Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin. 324 *Skin drying effects the removal of a portion of the moisture and diminishes the risk of a blown or a scabbed casting. 1954J. E. Garside in A. J. Murphy Non-Ferrous Foundry Metall. v. 171 Pouring should be completed as soon as possible after skin-drying owing to the fact that the moisture from the backing sand slowly penetrates towards the skin-dried mould face.
1891Electrician 29 May 91/1 Sir William Thomson recalled attention to the tendency of alternating currents to avoid the central portions of metallic conductors, thereby giving rise to an increase of resistance which has been occasionally alluded to under the name of the ‘*skin effect’. 1965Wireless World Aug. 401/1 The h.f. resistance is increased partly by skin effect, and more significantly by eddy currents induced in the lossy magnet system.
1882McCabe New York xxxix. 545 *Skin-faro..offers no chance whatever to the player.
1884C. G. W. Lock Workshop Rec. Ser. iii. 19/2 This mode of chasing, called..in English ‘*skin-finish’, is..only found on work of the best class.
1873Brit. Med. Jrnl. 15 Mar. 286/2 He took a large *skin-flap from the front below the knee, a smaller flap behind, and left just enough of the bones to fit an apparatus. 1974R. M. Kirk et al. Surgery v. 73/2 Skin flaps are used to close large defects in situations where sound healing is essential, when good quality of skin is desirable and when the local blood supply would not sustain free grafts.
1968–70Current Slang (Univ. S. Dakota) III–IV. 110 *Skin flick, n. A pornographic movie. 1969Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 7 June 13/3 We ran family movies for nine years and almost went broke. For the last three years, we've been showing skinflicks and doing much better financially. 1975P. Webb Erotic Arts viii. 280 In the '60s..film-makers became aware of the commercial possibilities of the voyeur film, or ‘skin-flick’.
1898, etc. *Skin-food [see food n. 2 b]. 1977B. Pym Quartet in Autumn ix. 81 Turning her attention to the wash basin she noted..a jar of skinfood and a tube of Steradent tablets.
1881Encycl. Brit. XII. 518/2 The two principal causes of the resistance to the motion of a ship are the *skin friction and the production of waves. 1907F. W. Lanchester Aerodynamics vi. 220 In actual planes it is impossible to do away with thickness, so that in addition to skin friction there must be the possibility of a longitudinal pressure component due to the shape of the plane. 1919R. H. Goddard Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes 9 The resistance, R, may be taken as independent of the length of the rocket by neglecting ‘skin friction’. 1948Sci. News VII. 24 In the same way a body moving through air loses energy by skin friction (analogous to conduction). 1978Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts CXXVI. 683/1 During acceleration to supersonic speeds the external surface of the structure becomes hotter due to skin friction from the air flow.
1868M. H. Smith Sunshine & Shadow in New York 405 The square game..is played only by gentlemen, and in first-class houses;..the *skin game..is played in all the dens and chambers, and in the thousand low hells of New York. 1882McCabe New York xxxix. 545 The ‘skin game’ is used, with the majority of the visitors, for the proprietor is determined from the outset to fleece them without mercy. 1897R. F. Foster Compl. Hoyle 623 Skin Games, those in which a player cannot possibly win. 1904W. H. Smith Promoters 98 We built the bridges finally,..for we weren't really working a skin game. 1920Galsworthy Skin Game i. 19 She wants to sell, an' she'll get her price, whatever it is. Hillcrist. (With deep anger) If that isn't a skin game..I don't know what is. 1958Economist 1 Feb. 398/2 The..ironies of German political life: the strange mixture of elements..that mingle in the Bonn skin game. 1970Times Educ. Suppl. 18 Dec. 1/1 The censor and the skin game. 1973J. Scarne Scarne's Encycl. Games xvi. 308 (heading) The skin game. 1973E. McGirr Bardel's Murder i. 10 As a very small [antiques] dealer, I was no opposition... His business is rather a skin game. 1976Globe & Mail (Toronto) 7 Jan. 10/3 The long-respected publication had been sold and new publishers had changed big game to the skin game. 1978Skin game [see sense 11 above].
1871Lancet 22 Apr. 535/1 On taking off the plaster the *skin-grafts were found adhering. 1900Brit. Med. Jrnl. 12 May, Epit. Med. Lit. 74 The wound should be allowed to granulate and subsequently be skin grafted. 1930A. H. Davis Burns xxi. 195 Most surgeons..find that heteroplastic skin grafts are universally unsuccessful. 1935P. H. Mitchiner Mod. Treatment of Burns & Scalds v. 54 Riverdin's or Thiersch's skin grafts give excellent results. 1977D. Bagley Enemy xxxi. 251 Gillian..had just had the operation for the first of the skin grafts.
1871Galaxy XII. 61 A ‘*skin’ house, as the dens where cheating games are played are called. 1902Farmer & Henley Slang VI. 227/1 Skin-house, a gambling den. 1970Harper's Mag. July 34 The skin houses were mostly playing short subjects—a girl taking a bath in a sylvan stream, a volley⁓ball game in a nudist camp. 1972Dict. Contemp. & Colloq. Usage (Eng. Lang. Inst. Amer.) 27/1 Skin house, a theater featuring nude women or films of nude women. 1972J. Wambaugh Blue Knight (1973) i. 29 Some gunsel I'd heard was hanging out in the skin houses and taxi⁓dance joints.
1968Rat 13–16 May 11/1 Two prophylactics and a *skin magazine was found in President Kirk's drawer. 1980Cosmopolitan May 319/1 Men often use pictures as stimulation when they masturbate (hence the popularity of so-called skin magazines), but women do so much less often.
1788C. Biddle Autobiogr. (1883) 227 *Skinmen, breechesmakers and glovers. 1829P. Egan Boxiana 2nd Ser. II. 220 At a proper age, JEM turned out to earn an honest penny, and was apprenticed to a skyver, or skinman, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 1970M. Tarmey Skinman vi. 128 He sat hunched and helpless in the chair.., a skinman without any skins.
1736H. Bourne Hist. Newcastle 89 There are higher up this Isle..other Three Characters, which are the Merchants *Skin⁓mark. 1789Brand Hist. Newcastle I. 278 note, Skin marks were not used instead of arms, but rather as distinct insignia appropriated to the profession of merchandise.
a1792Burgoyne Lord of Manor iii. ii. (D.), I am..vulgarly called a recruiting dealer, or more vulgarly still, a *skin-merchant.
1962A. L. Griff Plastics Extrusion Technol. vi. 122 In *skin-packaging, the coated board can now be the base, while coated flexible film can be the skin. 1971Engineering Apr. 63/2 Two commercial systems of skin packaging are in general use. The Soag-Stanley process uses an uncoated board, the other a coated and perforated board.
1939J. Dearden Iron & Steel Today x. 149 A single pass through a *skin pass mill then brings it to its final thickness. 1977R. B. Ross Handbk. Metal Treatments & Testing 351 On the production side, the Skin pass will be used to produce the final surface finish and simultaneously achieve slightly improved mechanical properties.
1869E. J. Reed Shipbuild. ix. 174 The fastenings of the stringer angle-irons connecting it with the *skin-plating.
1953Kramer & Karr Teen-Age Gangs i. 35 You get a big fat mouth every time you give that leg of yours a *skin-pop. Ibid. 243 Skin-pop, to inject drugs, usually heroin, under skin into body. 1959,1964[see main-line v.]. 1971‘D. Halliday’ Dolly & Doctor Bird xvi. 242 You can't deny we gave your social habits a skin-pop.
1970Daily Tel. 30 Jan. 19/1 She had also ‘*skin-popped’ (injected drugs just below the surface of the skin) and taken a vast assortment of pills.
1953Kramer & Karr Teen-age Gangs i. 35 A very expert *skin-popper, Hoppy is. 1970H. Waugh Finish me Off 48 No marks. She must be a skin-popper.
1952Sunday Times 3 Feb. 5/4 ‘*Skin popping’..consists of scratching open a place in the skin and injecting heroin or morphine there. 1970Observer 3 May 3/1 When the addicts run out of veins to inject, because of scars and ulcers, they try skin-popping—injecting just under the skin or into a muscle.
1936Amer. Jrnl. Physiol. CXVII. 189 (heading) *Skin potential and impedance responses with recurring shock stimulation. 1967Venables & Martin Man. Psychophysiol. Methods ii. 58 The permeability of the cell membrane is a physiological phenomenon, and measurements of skin resistance and skin potential must be made within physiological limits.
1650Bulwer Anthropomet. 237 The chief men and women have *skin-prints, as a brave kind of Gallantry.
1875English Mechanic 3 Sept. 634/3 We have sufficient data from which the *skin-resistance [of a ship's hull] can be determined. 1891Jrnl. Inst. Electr. Engineers XX. 479 When we deal with conductors of about a centimetre in diameter there is no apparent effect of this skin resistance. 1895H. Lamb Hydrodynamics xi. 575 The frictional or ‘skin-resistance’ experienced by a solid of ‘easy’ shape moving through a liquid. 1904Jrnl. Franklin Inst. CLVII. 248 The skin resistance of copper bonds increases with time. 1927Brain L. 231 We have learned that the skin resistance is invariably decreased both by pain and by elevation of body temperature. 1942S. R. Hathaway Physiol. Psychol. xi. 236 The level of skin resistance has a low inverse correlation with neuroticism. 1971Jrnl. Gen. Psychol. LXXXV. 88 Each record was analyzed by recording the averaged skin resistances for the last two minutes of the resting period and for each minute of the stimulus film period.
1875Encycl. Brit. II. 555/1 Blunted strigils or *skin-scrapers.
1935A. J. Pollock Underworld Speaks 107/2 *Skin search, an arrested person who is stripped naked and his body thoroughly searched for narcotics. 1970G. Jackson Let. 4 Apr. in Soledad Brother (1971) 212 Our cells were being invaded by the goon squad: you wake up, take your licks, get skin-searched. 1973Time 26 Mar. 64 So far, none of the three new guards in California's state prison system for men have been assigned to conduct ‘skin searches’ of nude prisoners for contraband. 1979F. Forsyth Devil's Alternative xvii. 386 If you are thinking of giving me a weapon, don't bother. On my return I am to be skin-searched.
1879tr. Haeckel's Evol. of Man I. ix. 270 The first of the secondary germ-layers, the *skin-sensory-layer.
1925W. W. Duke Allergy xv. 207 She gave positive *skin tests to a number of extracts including wheat. 1943W. C. Boyd Fund. Immunol. xi. 424 Patients should not be skin tested without previous adequate history and physical examination. 1961New Scientist 16 Mar. 696/1 All the components cause a positive reaction in the skin tests commonly used for allergic responses. 1971R. Scott Wedding Man ii. 65 Every Asian child was skin-tested [for tuberculosis] as soon as possible after arrival.
1925W. W. Duke Allergy xv. 206 One's first impression of *skin testing is likely to be one of disappointment. 1963L. V. Crawford in F. Speer Allergic Child xxvii. 420 Although the mechanics of skin testing are simple, considerable experience is required for proper interpretation.
1906Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 27 Jan. 5/1 (Advt.), Special Sales. Toilet Goods..*Skin Tonics. Perfumes. 1971M. Lee Dying for Fun xxxiv. 167 The fragrance of Lapsang Souchong, mingled with the tang of skin tonic.
1710W. Byrd Secret Diary (1941) 186 About 5 o'clock Robin Hix and Robin Mumford came to discourse about the *skin trade. 1885List of Subscribers, Classified (United Telephone Co.) (ed. 6) 101 (heading) Fur and skin trade. a1953Dylan Thomas (title) Adventures in the skin trade. 1977Time 19 Sept. 41/1 The city [sc. Boston] set aside this seedy downtown area three years ago for X-rated movies, porn shops and other facets of the skin trade—in hopes of being able to contain them.
1883Nature XXVII. 399 Experiments with regard to the ‘*skin-vision’ of animals.
1805J. Luccock Nature of Wool 340 The *skin-wool is not usually found most plentiful where the stock of sheep is most heavy. 1884W. S. B. McLaren Spinning (ed. 2) 71 With short wool, especially if it be skin wool, the rollers should be closed up.
1857tr. Küchenmeister's Anim. & Veg. Parasites I. 398 Amongst the Germans it is known as..the *skin worm,..leg-worm,..and Pharaoh's-worm. 1879E. R. Lankester Advancem. Sci. (1890) 40 The skin-worm (Demodex folliculorum).
1885Manch. Exam. 7 Apr. 4/7 A fire occurred..in Mr. Pryce Parry's *skinyard and wool warehouse.
Senses 11–16 in Dict. become 12–17. Add: [II.] [8.] j. slang (orig. U.S.). A condom.
In quots. 1975, 1990 with reference to the use of skin (or sukin) in Japanese as a katakana word or transliteration equivalent of the English.
1960Wentworth & Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang 482/1 Skin,..any thin rubber or animal membrane contraceptive; a condom; a rubber. 1971B. Thornberry tr. Hansen & Jensen's Little Red School-Bk. (ed. 2) 98 Boys use sheaths, sometimes called durex, skins, or French letters. 1975Forbes (N.Y.) 15 Oct. 68/3 More than 100 Japanese companies employ so-called ‘skin’ saleswomen to sell condoms door-to-door to the lady of the house. 1976T. Sharpe Wilt xvi. 160 ‘You got those rubbers you use?’ he asked suddenly... ‘I want those skins.’ 1990Sunday Correspondent 4 Feb. 42/5 She's one of Japan's Skin Ladies—her job is to sell condoms door-to-door.
k. slang (orig. U.S.). A paper for rolling cigarettes (esp. in smoking marijuana).
1969Fabian & Byrne Groupie xxx. 202 Passed the chick a plastic bag with skins and hash inside. 1969Gandalf's Garden vi. 11/2 Skins, cigarette papers. 1980S. McConville in Michaels & Ricks State of Lang. 525 It [sc. tobacco]..is smoked in a roll-up or spliff, the paper of which is called a skin.
11. A sub-division of a tribe; = moiety n. 4. Now only Austral.
1876W. G. Palgrave Dutch Guiana v. 165 Besides the ‘Grand Man’ of their own ‘skin’, in negro phrase, each tribe enjoys or endures the presence of a European official. 1927V & P (W. Austral.) I. iii. 83 The hurt, or the injury that I might do to one A, a native, is a hurt done not primarily to him, but done to the..group or skin, as they call it, of which he is a member. 1944W. E. Harney Taboo (ed. 3) 153 Old Toop-Toop was a Jimara native, that is, of the Jimara sub-section, or as the natives call it, ‘skin’ of the Mudbura tribe. 1958R. Stow To Islands ii. 48 It was their custom to address one another as brother-in-law, since Justin had given Gunn a skin name, a classification in the tribe, which put them in this relationship. 1978B. Scott Boori (1979) 148 Aboriginal tribes were divided into either four or eight ‘skins’. Each ‘skin’ was associated with an animal, bird or insect, as a totemic division. 1986Canberra Times 2 Apr. 7/2 The ‘skin’ name was the way of identifying an Aboriginal as part of a group.
▸ Computing. A graphical user interface, often designed by a user, which can be applied to a particular application or operating system in order to customize the default appearance or modality.
1998Re: Group Download in Progress in alt.tv.duckman (Usenet newsgroup) 11 Mar. Anyone know of any sites which have lots of good images? I am trying to make a Winamp skin of Duckman and co. 2002Computer Music Jan. 88/4 There are different colour schemes to choose from if the default skin isn't to your taste. 2004BusinessWeek 22 Nov. 80 (caption) With a skin from Purina, dog lovers get a virtual pet to play with.
▪ II. skin
variant of skeen.
▪ III. skin, v.
Also 6–7 skyn, skinne (6 scinne).
[f. skin n. Cf. Norw. skinna to cover with skin.]
I.
1. a. trans. To furnish or cover with skin; to cause skin to form or grow on; to heal by the formation of skin. Also with over.
1547Boorde Brev. Health cix. 41 b, After that incarnat the place and so skyn it. 1597A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. 39/2 We must..with an exsiccating plaster cure them, and soe skinne them. 1614W. B. Philosopher's Banquet (ed. 2) 55 Fresh-Butter skinnes the rawnesse of the throate. 1697Dryden Ded. æneid Ess. (Ker) II. 210 The wound was skinned; but the strength of his thigh was not restored. 1872Geo. Eliot Middlem. i. x, He looks like a death's head skinned over for the occasion.
absol.1601Holland Pliny II. 272 It [aloe] is..a great healer, and that which vniteth & skinneth quickly.
b. In fig. contexts. † Also with up.
1602Shakes. Ham. iii. iv. 147 It will but skin and filme the Vlcerous place. a1659Bp. Brownrig Serm. (1674) II. xx. 253 They had skin'd up the sore, and yet, it breaks out in their Soul again. c1750Warburton Serm. ii. Wks. 1811 IX. 47 The wounds, our own earth hath formerly received,..which though skinned over by time and human culture, are seen. 1796Coleridge The Destiny of Nations 410 Short Peace shall skin the wounds of causeless War. 1880McCarthy Own Times lx. IV. 337 He does not seem to have considered the difference between skinning over a wound and healing it.
c. fig. To cover (over) in some slight or superficial manner.
1603Shakes. Meas. for M. ii. ii. 136 Authoritie..Hath yet a kinde of medicine in it selfe That skins the vice o' th top. 1650Nicholas Papers (Camden) 191 It is to be feared your Amsterdam affaires are rather skinned than cured. 1658–9Sir A. Haslerigge in Burton's Diary (1828) III. 104 It may be skinned over for a time, but will break out. The people are not pleased. 1796Burke Regic. Peace Wks. 1842 II. 289 It is only their assured and confident expectation..that skins over their mischievous dispositions with a momentary quiet. 1833T. Hook Parson's Dau. i. x, The objects of which (so thinly were they skinned over) were just as evident to Emma as to Lady Frances. 1850Merivale Rom. Emp. ix. (1865) I. 372 This open rupture was with difficulty skinned over at the last moment.
2. a. fig. To clothe, attire. rare.
1599B. Jonson Cynthia's Rev. ii. iv, You never skin'd a new [? = anew] beautie more prosperously in your life. 1610Beaum. & Fl. Scornf. Lady ii. ii, Off with your husks; I'le skin you all in Sattin.
b. To cover with a skin or skins. rare—1.
1618in Foster Eng. Factories India (1606) I. 10 The jarres are all fild, stoped close, skyned, and marked with the distinction of the fruits.
c. absol. To put a good skin on cattle. rare—1.
1765Museum Rust. IV. 190 The largest pasture..will neither skin nor tallow, or, in other words, is fit for nothing but young stock.
d. Naut. (See quots.)
1815Burney Falconer's Dict. Marine s.v., To Skin up a Sail in the Bunt, is to make that part of the canvas which covers the sail when furled, smooth and neat, by turning the sail well up on the yard. 1841Totten Naval Text Bk. 394 To skin the sail up smooth is to turn it well up, and so as to cover the sail neatly and smoothly.
e. Shipbuilding. (See quot.)
c1850Rudim. Nav. (Weale) 141, Planking is often termed skinning the ship.
3. intr. To form skin; to become covered with skin; to grow a new skin; to heal over in this way. Also fig.
1579Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 181 The sooner it skinneth, the sorer it festereth. 1654H. L'Estrange Chas. I (1655) 124 Her excoriated carkasse began to skin again. 1763Mills Pract. Husb. IV. 345 All suckers must be cut away from the root, and the place..smoothed with a knife; for then it will soon skin over. 1829Southey Lett. (1856) IV. 129 If the ulcer skins over in that way, the quacks will exult in having wrought a cure. 1843R. J. Graves Syst. Clin. Med. xxix. 392 The centre [of the ulcer] granulated and skinned naturally. 1891Rider Haggard Nada xxxv, The hole in his skull skinned over.
II.
4. a. trans. To strip or deprive of the skin; to flay; to peel.
1591Percivall Span. Dict., Desollar.., to skin, to pul off the skin. 1687A. Lovell tr. Thevenot's Trav. i. 246 The Crocodile is very strong, and one day as I caused one of them..to be skinned [etc.]. 1725Fam. Dict. s.v. Pears, When they are off the Fire, stir, skin them, and squeeze about half a Lemon upon them. 1791Boswell Johnson 3 Apr. 1779, A fishmonger who was skinning an eel alive. 1853A. Soyer Pantropheon 167 It was necessary to skin the bird very carefully. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) I. 210 They may skin me alive, if they please.
b. To rub or scrape the skin off; to bark. Also transf.
1855Jarves Art Hints 383 Almost every one of his pictures have been more or less skinned, to use an expressive term, by the carelessness of cleaners. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. I. xiii. 167 It is the same hummock you skinned your shins upon. 1891C. Roberts Adrift Amer. 97 My feet were already skinned in several places.
c. In phrases denoting excessive meanness or desire for gain, esp. to skin a flint.
1694Motteux Rabelais v. vii, May I be broil'd like a Red⁓herring, if I don't think they are wise enough to skin a Flint. 1834Marryat P. Simple (1863) 195 Report says, that she would skin a flint if she could. 1851Mayhew Lond. Labour I. 134 They'd skin a flea for his hide and tallow. 1859Lever D. Dunn iv, I was..brought up amongst fellows would skin a cat. 1884[see flint n. 4].
d. to skin the cat (U.S.), to perform a gymnastic exercise involving passing the feet and legs between the arms while hanging by the hands from a horizontal bar and so drawing the body up and over the bar; also transf. and fig.
1845S. Judd Margaret ii. i. 199 Their several diversions, snapping-the-whip, skinning-the-cat, racing round the Meeting-house, or what not. 1888‘C. E. Craddock’ Story of Keedon Bluffs v. 88 He did not wait a second but ‘skinned the cat’ among the rafters. 1905N.Y. Even. Post 14 Oct., We have learned how to hide behind the back log of ‘environment’ or to ‘skin the cat’ in morality on the score of ‘heredity’. 1907C. E. Mulford Bar-20 viii. 80, I used to shinny up this here wall an' skin th' cat getting through that hole up there. 1931Sun (Baltimore) 29 May 12/7 You saw them skin the cat On the high trapeze. 1946B. Treadwell Big Bk. Swing 125/2 Skin he cat; ride, brother, ride.
e. To keep (one's eyes) open. U.S. colloq.
1865N.Y. Herald in Farmer & Henley Slang (1891) II. 361, Keep a padlock on yer mouth and skin yer weather eye. 1875J. G. Holland Sevenoaks x. 133 Skin yer eyes, now, Mr. Balfour, we're comin' to a lick.
f. fig. To beat or overcome completely. U.S. slang.
1862Charleston (S. Carolina) Mercury 9 Aug. 1/5 They were ‘skinning’ the soldiers of other regiments the ‘tallest kind’. 1911H. Quick Yellowstone Nights iv. 110 ‘Purty good little places,’ said he, ‘but the home place skins 'em all.’ 1981Verbatim VII. iii. 7/2 Puns (‘Eagles skin Washington’)..offer limitless possibilities to the enterprising sports journalist.
5. To strip or pull off (a skin, etc.); to remove by drawing off inside out.
1658–9in Burton's Diary (1828) IV. 228 They skin off your skin. 1683Moxon Mech. Exerc., Printing xxiv. ⁋11 Having carefully skinned off the Film with the edge of the Slice. 1759Martin Nat. Hist. I. 28 Turf of the Ground, skinned off, and burnt to Ashes. 1861Dickens Gt. Expect. xxxi, Skin the stockings off,..or you'll bust 'em.
transf.1896J. F. B. Lillard Poker Stories ii. 59 Many a time I've seen a game player just skin off his watch and ring..and play them in.
6. intr. To shed or cast the skin; to lose the skin by rubbing.
1772Ann. Reg. 96/2 It skins every year; and its skin is said to be a remedy against the cramp. 1908Gilbert Murray tr. Aristoph., Frogs i. ii, When all my shoulder's skinning, simply skinning.
7. slang.
a. trans. To clean out (a person) at play.
1812J. H. Vaux Flash Dict. s.v., To strip a man of all his money at play, is termed skinning him. 1864Daily Telegr. 19 Oct., The gamblers did their best to give us fits; but in less than half an hour, sir, the little squaw she skinned the crowd. 1889H. O'Reilly Fifty Yrs. on Trail 343 In less than two or three hours [to] be skinned out of every cent.
b. To strip (of clothing or money); to fleece by exactions or swindling.
1819Massachusetts Spy 24 Mar. 3/1 They will not be able to skin the people as deep as they did during their former reign. 1839C. F. Briggs Harry Franco II. vi. 76, I wish I may be blown into a gin shop if I warnt skinned clean O! The young woman had..picked my pockets of every cent. 1851Mayhew Lond. Labour II. 71 Perhaps he gets ‘skinned’ (stripped of his clothes and money from being hocussed, or tempted to helpless drunkenness). 1892Spectator 12 Mar. 364/2 Suppose the Emigration Trusts skin the emigrants until they stop emigration. 1898Eclectic Mag. LXVII. 607 Some new device is invented for enmeshing and skinning the investor.
c. skin the lamb (see quots.).
1864Slang Dict. 232 Skin the Lamb, a game at cards, a very expressive corruption of the term lansquenet... When a non favourite wins a race ‘bookmakers’ are said to skin the lamb. 1883Graphic 21 Apr. 410/2 The Ring are enormous winners on the race, the majority having ‘skinned the lamb’.
8. To exhaust or impoverish by excessive fishing, cropping, etc.
1867F. Francis Angling vii. (1880) 274 He does not want to skin the stream. 1895Forum (N.Y.) Sept. 8 To renovate the soil which had been ‘skinned’ in the days of slavery.
9. U.S. slang.
†a. trans. and intr. To copy or crib. Obs.
1835J. Todd Student's Manual (ed. 3) 115 Should you allow yourself to think of going into the recitation-room, and there trust to ‘skinning’, as it is called in some colleges. 1837Yale Lit. Mag. Feb. 138 A student is said to skin a problem, when he places the most implicit faith in the correctness of his neighbor's solution of it, or at least sufficient to warrant bestowing upon it the rites of adoption. 1849Yale Lit. Mag. XV. 81 Never skin a lesson which it requires any ability to learn. 1851Bristed Five Yrs. Eng. Univ. (1852) 381 Classical men were continually tempted to ‘skin’ (copy) the solutions of these examples. 1851B. H. Hall College Words & Customs 430 ‘At Yale College,..in our examinations,’ says a correspondent, ‘many of the fellows cover the palms of their hands with dates, and when called upon for a given date, they read it off directly from their hands. Such persons skin’.
b. intr. To abscond, make off, slip away; (U.S.) with out, to depart hastily. Also with through, to slip through, to pass by a narrow margin.
1876Besant & Rice Gold. Butterfly (1877) 254 You jest gether up your traps and skin out of this. 1894Outing XXIV. 442/1 The hero..would never have been one could he have skinned for cover in time. 1902G. H. Lorimer Lett. Self-Made Merchant xi. 141 If you would make a downright failure or a clean-cut success once in a while, instead of always just skinning through this way. 1920W. Camp Football without Coach 57 The best a runner can hope for is a chance to skin through that opening before it ceases to exist.
c. With out: To produce, display.
1873J. Miller Life amongst Modocs iv. 44 Four aces! and what else? Skin 'em out, skin 'em out! c1895Thompson St. Poker Cl. 42 Mr. Williams proudly skinned out three jacks and a pair of kings.
d. To glance over, examine.
1895Cornh. Mag. Aug. 174 Each man skinned his cards and tried his hardest to look disappointed.
10. In phrases used as adjs.
1869W. Morris in Mackail Life (1899) I. 203 If you had passed a week at this skin-'em-alive place. 1891C. MacEwen Three Women in One Boat 87 A good old skin-your-nose encounter.
III. 11. trans. and intr. To inject (a drug) subcutaneously. Cf. skin-pop v. s.v. skin n. 16. slang.
1953W. Burroughs Junkie vi. 57 He had to shoot in the skin about half the time. But he only gave up and ‘skinned’ a shot after an agonizing half-hour of probing and poking and cleaning out the needle, which would clog up with blood. 1970,1972[see main v. 2].
Add:[I.] [1.] d. transf. To cover (a surface) with a (thin) layer, esp. as in veneering; to coat or finish. Usu. in pass.
1946E. Diehl Bookbinding ii. iv. 51 Then immediately the pasted sheet is ‘skinned’ by placing over it a piece of unprinted newspaper large enough to cover the sheet..for a bare second and is then pulled off. 1987Yachting World Apr. 102/3 The seats are comfortable and both seat tops and cockpit sole are skinned with laid teak. 1989Aviation News 3–16 Feb. 862/4 The Cirrus Major 3 in this airframe caused heavy tail surface vibrations made acceptable only by skinning the tailplanes to stiffen the assembly. |