skiffs

Noun (1)

skiff (plural skiffs)

1. A small flat-bottomed open boat with a pointed bow and square stern.
   • Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
2. Any of various types of boats small enough for sailing or rowing by one person.
   • I went alone into a Shepherd's boat,
     A skiff that to a willow-tree was tied
     Within a rocky cave, its usual home […]1799, William Wordsworth, The Two-Part Prelude, Book I

Noun (2)

skiff (plural skiffs)

1. A light, fleeting shower of rain or snow, or gust of wind, etc.
   • A skiff of rain blew into the shed and the two men moved their chairs back.
2. A (typically light) dusting of snow or ice (or dust, etc) (on ground, water, trees, etc).
   • At sunrise there was a slight skiff of ice on some water in a bucket; […]1877, George Monro Grant, Ocean to Ocean: Sandford Fleming's Expedition Through Canada in 1872, page 131

Noun (3)

skiff (plural skiffs)

1. An act of slightly pruning tea bushes, placing new leaves at a convenient height without removing much woody growth.
   • In the fourth year, "light skiff" pruning removes just the uppermost growth.2001, Piya Chatterjee, A Time for Tea: Women, Labor, and Post/Colonial Politics on an Indian Plantation, page 173

See all 9 meanings of skiff