skin
/skɪn
/noun
1The thin layer of tissue forming the natural outer covering of the body of a person or animal: I use body lotion to keep my skin supple [mass noun]: a flap of skin...
- Typical teen problems like zits had not touched his flawless pale skin.
- His lightly muscled tanned bare skin glistened in the sun and he felt very much like an article on display.
- The light never touched his soft, tan skin.
Synonyms
epidermis, dermis
technical cuticle, cutis, corium, derma, derm, integument, tegument
complexion, colouring, skin colour, skin tone, pigmentation
1.1The skin of a dead animal with or without the fur, used as material for clothing or other items: [mass noun]: is this real crocodile skin?...
- The Inuit made all their clothing from various animal skins and hides.
- The Sun Dance ceremony practised by Plains Indians required the skins of dead animals in order to glorify the spirit of the wolf.
- He doffed his cap, also made from the skin of a dead animal - I later learned it was a raccoon.
Synonyms
hide, pelt, fleece;
Australian greenhide
technical crop, kip
archaic fell
1.2A container made from the skin of an animal such as a goat, used for holding liquids: a skin filled with water...
- He instead took the job of filling their water skins.
- He had finished washing his knife and had started filling up their water skins for the night.
- The water skin filled, quickly, and out of the top a stream of water burst out.
2An outer layer or covering, in particular:Meanwhile, thick layers of slate-colored skins began covering their exposed muscles....
- Islam is just the outer skin of an onion covering animism, Hinduism and other ancient mysteries.
- The distinctive bumpy skins are used to cover up wounds and to protect them from infection while they heal.
2.1The peel or outer layer of certain fruits or vegetables: potatoes roasted in their skins...
- Wheat bran and the skins of fruits and vegetables are sources of insoluble fiber.
- Peel the skin from the roast pepper halves and cut the stem off the aubergine halves.
- Simply peel away the outer skin of the kiwi and place in a hard-cooked egg slicer.
Synonyms
peel, rind, outside
technical integument
2.2The thin outer covering of a sausage: if you are using link-sausages, prick the skins well with a fork...
- In developing countries gut skins dominate the sausage market.
- Then, I imagine, it is pumped into sausage skins and served in a bun smothered in ketchup and mustard.
- It is a pudding in the old sense of something enclosed in a sausage skin.
2.3A thin layer forming on the surface of certain hot liquids, such as milk, as they cool: Victoria was skimming the skin off the saucepan of milk...
- To make matters worse, spinach was often on the menu and there was a skin on the milk they served for breakfast.
- It is chilly enough that where the water is calm a skin of ice has formed.
- Air must be excluded from the can by a tight-fitting lid, or a skin can form in the can.
Synonyms
film, coating, coat, layer, overlay;
sheet;
membrane
technical pellicle
2.4 informal A cigarette paper: I passed her a plastic bag with skins and hash inside
2.5The outermost layer of a structure such as a building or aircraft.The hole in the floor was covered with a sliding panel flush with the aircraft's skin....
- With the wing structure complete, the wings were then covered with aircraft grade mahogany skin.
- The longerons were good and did not need replacement but we did replace some skins on the lower fuselage.
Synonyms
casing, cover, covering, exterior, pod
2.6 (usually skins) A strip of sealskin or other material attached to the underside of a ski to prevent a skier slipping backwards during climbing.The route got steeper and we put climbing skins (strips of special fur) on our ski bottoms....
- Attach climbing skins to your skis and up you go.
- We stripped off the synthetic climbing skins from our skis.
3British informal A skinhead: we were surrounded by skins with tattoos and braces...
- They were surrounded by a devoted crowd of aging skins, punks & Goths worshipping at the church of Sioux.
- As for punks 'n' skins in Derby, there's hardly any.
- From my experiences, punks & skins generally get along OK.
4 (usually skins) informal (Especially in jazz) a drum or drum head.Drummer Ste Barrow is frantically searching for a replacement having just split the skin on his bass drum....
- Weiss pulverizes the skins, and the guitars of Brownstein and Tucker play off of one another with furious intensity.
- Carved from tweneboa, a Ghanaian cedar tree, the drums have fragile skins and tuning pegs.
5 [as modifier] informal Relating to or denoting pornographic literature or films: the skin trade...
- This is undoubtedly one of the best, most bedazzling films of his skin show career.
6 [mass noun] US A card game in which each player has one card which they bet will not be the first to be matched by a card dealt from the pack.
7 Computing A customized graphic user interface for an application or operating system.They swapped modding techniques and hundreds of custom skins over the website message board....
- The white console is customisable too, with the ability to swap everything from the console's faceplate to the skins on the software interface.
- For example, will it be possible to use custom skins or will you release tools to allow users to build custom levels?
8Australian A unit into which an Aboriginal people is divided, typically on the basis of descent, each skin being associated with a totemic bird, animal, or insect.Marriage or sexual relationships with any member of the other seven 'skins' are regarded as improper....
- In combination with the kinship avoidance structure, there is the 'skin' system.
- The logo was designed by a now deceased Gunwinggu man of the gamarrang subsection or 'skin' from the Born clan.
verb (skins, skinning, skinned) [with object]
1Remove the skin from (an animal or a fruit or vegetable): scald and skin the tomatoes she skinned the pig and salted the carcass...
- Cows are still skinned and dismembered alive, and pigs are still scalded to death, just like chickens are.
- He is shown feeding the sheep and skinning a rabbit.
- Then, when he had finished, he got Zi to help him skin the deer and preserve the meat, in case they ever ran out of food.
Synonyms
peel, pare, hull
technical decorticate
2Graze (a part of one’s body): he scrambled down from the tree with such haste that he skinned his knees...
- I'm thinking about skinning my knee, getting rug burns or ‘Indian’ burns, things like that.
- If you fell and skinned your knee or caught a cold, it was because God had seen you do something wrong.
- I, however, did seriously skin both my knees and so completely stuff myself it took about 2 hours to recover.
Synonyms
graze, scrape, abrade, bark, cut, rub something raw, chafe
technical excoriate
3 [no object] (Of a wound) form new skin: the hole in his skull skinned over...
- My guess is that the stain is too thickly applied and has skinned over.
3.1 [with object] archaic Cover with skin: the wound was skinned, but the strength of his thigh was not restored
4 informal Take money from or swindle (someone): I ain’t no dummy, and I know when I’m being skinned...
- The gimmick has generated so much publicity, Mercury is trying to devise an equivalent design - without skinning the author - for the planned 5,000 book run.
- Inevitably then, it can only financially top up local authorities by skinning you and I to an even deeper extent than it is already doing.
5 Soccer, informal (Of a player) take the ball past (a defender) with ease: Kanchelskis would have skinned him...
- Taking Colgan's pass, he skinned two defenders for pace, shipped another tackle and popped over with the inside of his left boot.
- Ballack set him free with subtle chip over the top, and Klose skinned the out-rushing keeper before slotting it home with ease.
- Part of the problem was traced back to one high-rolling casino player who managed to skin the firm for £3m.
6 [no object] (skin up) British informal Make a cannabis cigarette: we had a few beers and then we skinned up...
- At the end of a hard days work I like nothing more than to skin up a joint and get high.
- I then visualised myself sitting in a desert, skinning up two joints, one for me, and one for Bast.
- Let's kick off with some suitably chilled warm-up music, while you pitch your virtual tent and skin up a virtual fat one.
Phrases
be skin and bone
by the skin of one's teeth
get under someone's skin
give someone (some) skin
have skin in the game
have a thick (or thin) skin
it's no skin off my nose (or off my back)
keep (or sleep in) a whole skin
make someone's skin crawl (or creep)
skin and blister
skin (one's) teeth
there's more than one way to skin a cat
under the skin
Derivatives
skinless
- Chop three boneless, skinless chicken breasts into cubes.
- I even came home and cooked up a slew of skinless, frozen chicken breasts for lunch this week.
- Some lean meat morsels you may want to munch include skinless cuts of roasted, baked or broiled poultry and seafood.
skin-like
- As Sammy's, the place is still a warehouse-like box, with a strangely skin-like material decorating outdoor areas and an identical volleyball setup.
- You felt like a child or baby walking shoeless through the skin-like membrane.
- Approximately 25 cm long, the animal has a flat tail surrounded by a skin-like fin which is used for swimming.
Origin
Late Old English scinn, from Old Norse skinn; related to Dutch schinden 'flay, peel' and German schinden.
Old Scandinavian gave us skin in the later Old English period—the word used until then was hide. The expression by the skin of your teeth arose from a misquotation from the biblical book of Job: ‘I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.’ The implication is ‘and nothing else’. See also beauty. The skinhead is associated with the Britain of the 1970s, but the first skinheads were American. In the 1950s recruits to the US Marines were known as skinheads because of the severe way their hair was cropped when they joined up. The colloquial word skint first found in the 1920s is a variant of colloquial skinned used in the same sense.