skim
/skɪm/
skim verb: to pass lightly; to glide along in an even, smooth course; to glide along near the surface.
Verb
skim (third-person singular simple present skims, present participle skimming, simple past and past participle skimmed)
- 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.1711 May, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W[illiam] Lewis […]; and sold by W[illiam] Taylor […], T[homas] Osborn[e] […], and J[ohn] Graves […], →OCLC
- 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.1817, William Hazlitt, The Round Table
- To hasten along with superficial attention.
- They skim over a science in a very night superficial survey.1741, I[saac] Watts, The Improvement of the Mind: Or, A Supplement to the Art of Logick: […], London: […] James Brackstone, […], →OCLC
- To put on a finishing coat of plaster.
- Ceilings are lined with fibrous asbestos, the internal plastering being reduced to skimming alone.1924, The Architect, volume 112, page 291
- To throw an object so it bounces on water.
- skimming stones
- To ricochet.
- To read quickly or describe summarily, skipping some detail.
- (through)
- I skimmed the newspaper over breakfast.
- Synonyms:
- skip
- To scrape off; to remove (something) from a surface
- To clear (a liquid) from scum or substance floating or lying on it, by means of a utensil that passes just beneath the surface.
- to skim milk
- to skim broth
- To clear a liquid from (scum or substance floating or lying on it), especially the cream that floats on top of fresh milk.
- to skim cream
- To steal money from a business before the transaction has been recorded, thus avoiding detection.
- Obviously, the longer cash sits around before being recorded, the more likely it is that a skimming fraud will occur.2006, Herbert Snyder, Small Change, Big Problems, page 48
- […] take this money without entering anything into the record-keeping system, thereby accomplishing a theft by skimming.2009, Tracy L. Coenen, Expert Fraud Investigation: A Step-by-Step Guide, page 109
- To surreptitiously scan a payment card in order to obtain its information for fraudulent purposes.
- To become coated over.
Adjective
skim (not comparable)
Noun
skim (countable and uncountable, plural skims)
- A cursory reading, skipping the details.
- For a first quick appreciation of the approach, we recommend a fast reading of Chapter 1, then a skim through the figures of the next two chapters — glancing at the definitions of key concepts that appear below the figures in Chapters 2 and 3.2012, John Friend, Allen Hickling, Planning Under Pressure, page xxii
- Skim milk.
- Two percent milk has only a fraction less fat than whole milk, so unless you are feeding a child or someone whose diet requires whole milk, skim is best.2010, Gary G. Kindley, Growing Older Without Fear: The Nine Qualities of Successful Aging
- The act of skimming.
- Then you could jump 150 years and enjoy a skim across the Solent in Britain's remarkable Hovercraft.1969, Newsweek, volume 74, page 75
- That which is skimmed off.
- Theft of money from a business before the transaction has been recorded, thus avoiding detection.
- It's a hustle, but it keeps me busy. I can take in three to three-fifty a week, more with skims.1976, Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver, spoken by Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro)
- This potential is further increased by the ease of passing on the costs of corruption and racketeering to consumers; a skim of only one percent of a construction project can amount to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.1989, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations. Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Subcommittee, Waste, Fraud, and Abuse at Federally Funded Wastewater Treatment...
skim meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu
skim in Hindi
- remove cream
- मलाई निकालना malāī nikālnā
skim in Tamil
- மேலாடை
skim in Marathi
- स्किम करण्यासाठी
skim in Telugu
- స్కిమ్మింగ్ చేయండి, స్కిమ్ చేయడానికి, స్కిమ్ చెయ్యడానికి
More languagesFewer languages
- skim in Malayalam
- ദ്രാവകത്തിൻറെ ഉപരിപാട നീക്കുക, വഴുതുക, പതവെട്ടുക, ബാഹ്യവായന നടത്തുക
- skim in Kannada
- ಕೆನೆತೆಗೆ
- skim in Punjabi
- ਸਕਿੱਮ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ, ਸਕਿੰਮ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ, ਸਕਿਮ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
- skim in Gujarati
- સ્કિમિંગ કરો, સ્કિમિંગ કરવા માટે
- skim in Nepali
- स्किम गर्न, स्किम् गर्न
- skim in Arabic
- يَرْتَ yarta
Examples of skim in a sentence
- We like to drink skim milk instead so as to consume fewer calories.
- We like to drink skimmed milk instead so as to consume fewer calories.
- He logged on to yahoo.com, skimmed the front page, and decided to sign in.
Synonyms of skim
Forms of skim
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | skims |
| present participle | skimming |
| past participle | skimmed |
| past | skimmed |
| Noun | |
| plural | skims |
Origin of skim
From Middle English skemen, skymen, variants of scumen, from Old French escumer (“to remove scum”), from escume (“froth, foam”), from Frankish *skūm (“froth, foam”), from Proto-Germanic *skūmaz (“foam”), from Proto-Indo-European *skew- (“to cover, conceal”). See scum.
Words formed from skim
Phrases with skim
Words that rhyme with skim
Questions about skim
- What does skim mean?
- Skim means to pass lightly; to glide along in an even, smooth course; to glide along near the surface.
- What is skim in Hindi?
- Skim in Hindi is मलाई निकालना (malāī nikālnā). See Skim meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is skim?
- Skim can be a verb, an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce skim?
- Skim is pronounced /skɪm/.
- What is the past tense of skim?
- The past tense of skim is skimmed.
Words near skim in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: skim (page history and authors); skim (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); skim (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); skim (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); skim (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); skim (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); skim (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); skim (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); skim (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-skim.wav.
Cite this entry: “skim.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skim. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.