SKIM • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Skim

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/skɪm/ Listen

verb

Skim v. t. (past & past part. skimmed; pres. part. skimming)

To clear (a liquid) from scum or substance floating or lying thereon, by means of a utensil that passes just beneath the surface; as, to skim milk; to skim broth.

To take off by skimming; as, to skim cream.

To pass near the surface of; to brush the surface of; to glide swiftly along the surface of. "Homer describes Mercury as flinging himself from the top of Olympus, and skimming the surface of the ocean."

Fig.: To read or examine superficially and rapidly, in order to cull the principal facts or thoughts; as, to skim a book or a newspaper.

Skim v. i.

To pass lightly; to glide along in an even, smooth course; to glide along near the surface. "Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main."

To hasten along with superficial attention. "They skim over a science in a very superficial survey."

To put on the finishing coat of plaster.

adjective

Skim adj. Contraction of Skimming and Skimmed.

Skim coat, the final or finishing coat of plaster.

Skim colter, a colter for paring off the surface of land.

Skim milk, skimmed milk; milk from which the cream has been taken.

See images of 'Skim'

Etymology of 'Skim'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Skim" Quotes from Famous Books

... enjoying myself in spite of my sorrows. The sun was low and creamy, and the snow was so white and the shadows so slender and blue. All through the lovely Stillwater woods was a fine frosty stillness. It was splendid to skim down those long wonderful avenues of crusted snow, with the mossy grey boles on either hand, and overhead the lacing, leafless boughs, I just drank in the air and the beauty until my very soul was thrilling, and I went on and on and on until I was most delightfully lost. That is, I ...

— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... The second day after dismissing the three Indians they were enveloped in a blinding snowstorm, and they had to halt and make camp. It was terribly cold, so cold that a hot cup of tea would have a skim of ice over it in a minute after it was poured out. It seemed as if their very bones ...

— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster

... servants. Your thoughts are the thoughts of cooks curious to skim perquisites from every pan, your quarrels are the quarrels of scullions who fight for the privilege of cleaning the pot with most leavings in it, your committees sit upon the landings of back-stairs, and your quarrels ...

— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... coursers that strain, on the track, neck and neck, on the home-stretch, With nostrils distended, and mane froth-flecked, and the neck and the shoulders, Each urged to his best by the cry and the whip and the rein of his rider, Now they skim o'er the waters and fly, side by side, neck and neck, through the meadows. The blue heron flaps from the reeds, and away wings her course up the river; Straight and swift is her flight o'er the meads, but she hardly outstrips ...

— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... is really little interest except for the archeologist in digging so far into the past for an art that has left us but traditions and museum fragments, let us skim but lightly the surface of this time, only picking up the glistening facts that attract the mind's eye, so that we may quickly reach the enchanted land of more recent times which yet ...

— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

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