skivvy
/ˈskɪvi/
skivvy noun: a female domestic servant, especially one employed for menial work.
Noun
skivvy (plural skivvies)
- A female domestic servant, especially one employed for menial work.
- And then Somerset looked at the boys′ skivvy, and saw a well set up young woman with a red round face, an angry face just then but underneath the anger a pleasant one.1974, Simon Raven, Bring Forth the Body: Alms for Oblivion, volume 3, published 2012, page 194
- The common skivvy from the mortuary clings immoveably to the priest′s bed, which is just as immoveably guarded by the grandmother, who drives her off with a chamberpot. The skivvy is the photographer′s widow, trying to take a picture.2002, Krzysztof Miklaszewski, George M. Hyde (translator, editor), Encounters with Tadeusz Kantor, page 143
- A prostitute.
- A close-fitting, long-sleeved T-shirt with a rolled collar.
- Then dark blood squirts from a little hole in Sergeant Gerheim's chest. The red blood blossoms into his white skivvy shirt like a beautiful flower.1979, Gustav Hasford, The Short-Timers, New York: Bantam Books, published 1980, →ISBN, page 30
- I put my wetsuit and skivvy on a tree to dry, and laid out my other gear on some grass.1998, Tom Byron, The History of Spearfishing and Scuba Diving in Australia, page 191
Verb
skivvy (third-person singular simple present skivvies, present participle skivvying, simple past and past participle skivvied)
- To perform menial work; to do chores, like a servant.
- We went out by turns, or sent out the apprentices who skivvied for us, to fetch in roast pork […]1930, Owen Lattimore, chapter 1, in High Tartary, Boston: Little, Brown, page 9
- ‘My mother was right. “It’ll take the war for the buggers to realize how important we are,” she used to say, “but as soon as Hitler hangs his clogs up we’ll be back skivvying and scurrying like there’s nothing in our heads.”’1985, Caryl Phillips, The Final Passage, London: Faber and Faber, page 174
Examples of skivvy in a sentence
- “[…]Yes, that was Mac′s Restaurant and I was a kitchen skivvy there, but amazingly, a kitchen skivvy who had actually written a poem.2005, Jenny Telfer Chaplin, The Widow of Candleriggs, unnumbered page:
- He shouldn′t be allowed to wear a black skivvy.2005, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big in This?, page 224:
- He saw no mother but a washerwoman at her skivvying and the dirt-faced children that would be clinging to her skirts.2001, Jamie O’Neill, At Swim, Two Boys, London: Scribner, Part 2, Chapter 13, p. 361:
Forms of skivvy
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | skivvies |
| alternative form | skivvie |
| alternative form | skivy |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | skivvies |
| present participle | skivvying |
| past participle | skivvied |
| past | skivvied |
Words formed from skivvy
- skivvy house
Words that rhyme with skivvy
Questions about skivvy
- What does skivvy mean?
- Skivvy means a female domestic servant, especially one employed for menial work.
- How do you use skivvy in a sentence?
- “[…]Yes, that was Mac′s Restaurant and I was a kitchen skivvy there, but amazingly, a kitchen skivvy who had actually written a poem.
- What part of speech is skivvy?
- Skivvy can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce skivvy?
- Skivvy is pronounced /ˈskɪvi/.
- What is the plural of skivvy?
- The plural of skivvy is skivvies.
Words near skivvy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: skivvy (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-skivvy.ogg.
Cite this entry: “skivvy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skivvy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.