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Skimming   /skˈɪmɪŋ/   Listen
verb
Skim  v. t.  (past & past part. skimmed; pres. part. skimming)  
1.
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.
2.
To take off by skimming; as, to skim cream.
3.
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."
4.
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.  
1.
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."
2.
To hasten along with superficial attention. "They skim over a science in a very superficial survey."
3.
To put on the finishing coat of plaster.


noun
Skimming  n.  
1.
The act of one who skims.
2.
That which is skimmed from the surface of a liquid; chiefly used in the plural; as, the skimmings of broth.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Skimming" Quotes from Famous Books



... was skimming beneath the surface of a sea of clouds: now the black billows had silver crests: now an incandescent buoy bobbed among them. O for ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... and breast of rusty brown or grayish-white crossed by narrow bars of a darker tint. The sparrow-hawk feeds mostly upon small birds, but it will also catch moles, field-mice, and even grasshoppers. It flies low, skimming along but a few feet from the ground, its sharp little eyes always on the ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... he worked at hardest, and finished, but with less deliberation. He grew more and more careless toward the books he counted of little consequence, while he imagined himself growing more and more capable of getting at the heart of a book by skimming its pages. If to skim be ever a true faculty, it must come of long experience in the art of reading, and is not possible to a beginner. To skim and judge, is to wake from a doze and give the charge to ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... she had hitherto but glanced at: now she saw it all plain before her; saw it, understood it, adored it, mourned it. Such women are shallow, not for want of a head upon their shoulders, but of ATTENTION. They do not really study anything: they have been taught at their schools the bad art of skimming; but let their hearts compel their brains to think and think, the result is considerable. The deepest philosopher never fathomed a character more thoroughly than this poor child fathomed her philosopher, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... feel as if I were a child to-day." " Oh, it's no fun playing with a girl," replied the boy; "besides, I am going fishing in the river with Zebbadee Blake; I shan't be back till supper," and shouldering his fishing-rod he flung off with his can of worms. Miss Saidie was skimming big pans of milk in the spring-house, and Maria watched her idly for a time, growing suddenly impatient of the leisurely way in which the spoon travelled under the yellow cream. "I don't see how you can be so fond of it," she said at ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow


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