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.

• IPA^(key): /skɪm/
• Rhymes: -ɪm

skim (third-person singular simple present skims, present participle skimming, simple past and past participle skimmed)

1. (intransitive) To pass lightly; to glide along in an even, smooth course; to glide along near the surface.
   • Alexander Pope

     Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, / Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.

2. (transitive) To pass near the surface of; to brush the surface of; to glide swiftly along the surface of.
   • Hazlitt

     Homer describes Mercury as flinging himself from the top of Olympus, and skimming the surface of the ocean.

3. To hasten along with superficial attention.
   • I. Watts

     They skim over a science in a very superficial survey.

4. To put on a finishing coat of plaster.
5. (transitive) to throw an object so it bounces on water (skimming stones)
6. (intransitive) to ricochet
7. (transitive) to read quickly, skipping some detail

   I skimmed the newspaper over breakfast.

8. (transitive) to scrape off; to remove (something) from a surface
9. (transitive) 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

10. (transitive) 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

11. To surreptitiously scan a payment card in order to obtain its information for fraudulent purposes.

skim (not comparable)

1. (of milk) Having lowered fat content.

• skim milk

skim (countable and uncountable, plural skims)

1. A cursory reading, skipping the details.
   • 2012, John Friend, Allen Hickling, Planning Under Pressure (page xxii)

     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.

2. (informal) Skim milk.
   • 2010, Gary G. Kindley, Growing Older Without Fear: The Nine Qualities of Successful Aging

     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.

3. The act of skimming.
   • 1969, Newsweek (volume 74, page 75)

     Then you could jump 150 years and enjoy a skim across the Solent in Britain's remarkable Hovercraft.

4. That which is skimmed off.