throw a sickie

• chuck a sickie

throw a sickie (third-person singular simple present throws a sickie, present participle throwing a sickie, simple past threw a sickie, past participle thrown a sickie)

1. (slang, Britain, Australia, New Zealand) To take a day off from work for ill health (either real or feigned).
   • 1997, Nicholas Blincoe, Jello Salad‎, page 49:

     Hogie said, “Listen, I′m throwing a sickie. I don′t need to be there until opening day tomorrow. The staff don′t arrive till then anyway so as long as I'm in early I can′t see a problem.”

   • 2005, Callum G. Brown, The Unconverted and the Conversion, Jan N. Bremmer, Wout J. van Bekkum, Arie L. Molendijk (editors), Paradigms, Poetics, and Politics of Conversion: Gender Relations in the Salvation Narrative in Britain: 1800-1960, page 190,

     It is like throwing a ‘sickie’ in Britain today — you can sign-off work on your own say-so for sick benefit for up to five days.

   • 2011, Gererd Dixie, The Ultimate Teaching Manual: A Route to Success for Beginning Teachers‎, page 187:

     Do not ‘throw a sickie’ just because things get tough. Experience shows that running away from your problems will not solve anything.

• (claim a sick day): pull a sickie, see also Thesaurus:shirk