skilly

UK/ˈskɪli/

skilly noun: skillygalee.

Noun

skilly (uncountable)

(obsolete) Skillygalee.
- “I would be given for supper six ounces of bread and ‘three parts of skilly.’ ‘Three parts’ means three-quarters of a pint, and ‘skilly’ is a fluid concoction of three quarts of oatmeal stirred into three buckets and a half of hot water.”1903, Jack London, The People of the Abyss, Macmillan
- Of course unlike the officers we never got fresh bread, we got what came from barrels stored in the lower peak and under the steward's padlock. Pantiles baked brick hard, mouldy oats for skilly, dried peas for soup, embalmed pork and beef more fat and bone than meat.2013, Wayne Ward, Old Union, page 168

skilly (comparative more skilly, superlative most skilly)

(Northern England, Scotland) Skilled, skilful.
- So, being a fell impatient man, and skilly with his hands, he took Sam Gourlay a clout in the lug that couped him down in the stour […]1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 80

நீராளக் கஞ்சி, தெளு

comparative	more skilly
superlative	most skilly

Shortening.

From Middle English skylly, skily, equivalent to skill + -y.

22 more rhymesFewer rhymes

What does skilly mean?: Skilly means skillygalee.
What is skilly in Tamil?: Skilly in Tamil is நீராளக் கஞ்சி, தெளு. See Skilly meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is skilly?: Skilly can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce skilly?: Skilly is pronounced /ˈskɪli/ (UK).

Adapted from Wiktionary: skilly (page history and authors); skilly (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “skilly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skilly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.