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Skim   /skɪm/   Listen
Skim

verb
(past & past part. skimmed; pres. part. skimming)
1.
Travel on the surface of water.  Synonym: plane.
2.
Move or pass swiftly and lightly over the surface of.  Synonym: skim over.
3.
Examine hastily.  Synonyms: glance over, rake, run down, scan.
4.
Cause to skip over a surface.  Synonyms: skip, skitter.
5.
Coat (a liquid) with a layer.
6.
Remove from the surface.  Synonyms: cream, cream off, skim off.
7.
Read superficially.  Synonym: skim over.



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"Skim" Quotes from Famous Books



... took her almost two hours each way. She said the kind of costume she required should have been corrugated steel. But all three knew what was being worn, and they wore it—or fairly faithful copies of it. Eva, the housekeeping sister, had a needle knack. She could skim the State Street windows and come away with a mental photograph of every separate tuck, hem, yoke, and ribbon. Heads of departments showed her the things they kept in drawers, and she went home and reproduced them with the aid of a seamstress by the day. Stell, the youngest, was the beauty. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... the interesting doubt of a wrong reading; such men, in the spirit of pedantry, have refused to Lord Brougham the merit of profundity, while they allow that he possesses a sort of superficial knowledge of the classics; they say that he can gracefully skim the surface of the stream, but that its depths would overwhelm him. Now, while this may be true as regards the fact, we dissent from it as regards the inference. It is a question to be decided between the learned drones of a by-gone school and the quicker ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... deer of the forest At the river stoop to drink, But from the rush of waters All panic-stricken shrink; And the mountain eagles sailing O'er the cataract's foaming brim Alarmed, on soaring pinions, Away, o'er Heaven's clouds skim. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... Anglers repaired to the deep pond in quest of trout, but more likely to find water-snakes and snapping turtles. Far in the distance, on the right, moving like fairy gondolas through the cypress-covered lagoon, little barks skim the dark surface. They move like spectres, carrying their fair freight, fanned by the gentle breeze pregnant with the magnolia' sweet perfume. The fair ones in those tiny barks are fishing; they move from tree to tree trailing their lines to tempt ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... a single iceberg is to be seen on this fantastic sea. Innumerable flocks of birds skim its surface, among them is a pelican which is shot. On a floating piece of ice is a bear of the Arctic species and of gigantic size. At last land is signalled. It is an island of a league in circumference, to which the name of Bennet ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... sources of the Nile, I'd see the Sandwich Islands, And Chimborazo's granite pile, And Scotland's rugged Highlands; I'd skim the sands of Timbuctoo; ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... Separator, about 1890. USNM 129789; 1934. Cooley brand creamer, used for separating milk from cream prior to churning. The milk and cream were set in a cool place for several hours while the cream rose to the top. The farmer drew skim milk off through a spigot at the bottom, after which the cream could be drawn off. Used on farms before the hand centrifugal separator came into wide use. By 1890, in butter-producing areas, the centrifugal separator had already caused the disuse of the Cooley and similar separators. ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker

... there's the other boy sickening too. Then I went down and saw all those cases in the Lower Ponds, and have been running about the town ever since to try what can be done, hunting up nurses, whom I can't get, stirring dishes of skim milk, trying to get the funerals over to-morrow morning by daybreak. I declare I have hardly a leg ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her, three of which she had gained since keeping off, wing-and-wing. The lightness of the little craft essentially aided her. The canvas had less weight to drag after it; and Pintard observed that the hull seemed to skim the waves, as soon as the sharp stem had divided them, and the water took the bearings of the vessel. Hour after hour did he sit on the bowsprit, watching her progress; a crest of foam scarce appearing ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... surrounds the whirl; and I thought of course that another moment would plunge us into the abyss—down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge writhing wall between us and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... was as wooden and solid as need be, and Affery went straight down it without any of those deviations peculiar to dreams. She did not skim over it, but walked down it, and guided herself by the banisters on account of her candle having died out. In one corner of the hall, behind the house-door, there was a little waiting-room, like a well-shaft, with a long narrow window in it as if it had been ripped up. In this room, which was never ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... a small, speedy craft, sailing around the submarine. It seemed fairly to skim over the surface of the water, and cast the spray astern like a mist. It had come up ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward

... always try to profit by my superiors. She has courage: I have none. I beat about the bush, and talk skim-milk; she uses the very word. She said we have been the dupe and the tool of a little scheming rascal, an anonymous coward, with motives as base as his heart is black—oh! oh! Ay, that is the way to speak of such a man; I can't do it myself, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... by sailors, "mother Carey's chickens." These birds are seldom seen in calm weather, but appear to follow the gale, and when it blows most heavily they are seen in greatest numbers. The colour is brown and white; the size about that of the swallow, whose motions oh the wing they resemble. They skim over the surface of the roughest sea, gliding up and down the undulations with astonishing swiftness. When they observe their prey, they descend flutteringly, and place the feet and the tips of the wings on the surface of the water. In this position I have seen many of them rest for ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... my driver drop the skim-copter to the street when we got to Pennsylvania Avenue within a block of the building, and he skimmed to the outskirts of the crowd that was pressing around the entrance. There were four or five hundred people ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker

... sprung from Pelion peak floated, so 'tis said, through liquid billows of Neptune to the flowing Phasis and the confines Aeetaean, when the picked youth, the vigour of Argive manhood seeking to carry away the Golden Fleece from Colchis, dared to skim o'er salt seas in a swift-sailing ship, sweeping caerulean ocean with paddles shapen from fir-wood. That Goddess who guards the castles in topmost parts of the towns herself fashioned the car, scudding with lightest of winds, uniting the interweaved pines unto the ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... overplus of glory and of depth is here that we do not know and never can know. The most fragmentary and inadequate grasp of them with heart and mind will bring light to the mind and quietness and peace to the heart; but the whole meaning of them goes beyond men and angels. We can only skim the surface and seek to shift back the boundaries of our knowledge a little further, and to embrace within its limits a little more of the broad land into which the words bring us. So just take a thought or two which may tend ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... tree is stuck up. The men arm themselves with small boodthuls, or miniature waddies, then stand a few feet behind the bush, which varies from five to eight feet or so in height at competitions. They throw their boodthuls in turn; these have to skim through the top of the bush, which seems to give them fresh impetus instead of slackening them. The distance they go beyond is the test of a good thrower; over three hundred yards is not unusual. As practice in this game is kept up, the young ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... partly packed by the rabbits. After perhaps an hour of this, he had wearied and sought to save himself by abandoning the lynx's territory, so had struck across the open lake. But here the snow was too soft to bear him at all, and the lynx could still skim over. So it proved a fatal error. He was strong and brave. He fought at least another hour here before the much stronger, heavier lynx had done him to death. There was no justification. It was a clear case of tyrannical ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrew'd and knauish spirit Cal'd Robin Good-fellow. Are you not hee, That frights the maidens of the Villagree, Skim milke, and sometimes labour in the querne, And bootlesse make the breathlesse huswife cherne, And sometime make the drinke to beare no barme, Misleade night-wanderers, laughing at their harme, Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Pucke, You do their worke, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... along the drawbridge flies, Just as it trembled on the rise; Not lighter does the swallow skim Along the smooth lake's level brim: And when Lord Marmion reached his band, He halts, and turns with clenched hand, A shout of loud defiance pours, And shakes his gauntlet at the towers! ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... 'em same as ord'nary folks. They need speshul food. You'll need to give 'em boiled milk plain or with pap, you kin git fancy crackers an' soak 'em. Then ther's beef-tea. Not jest ord'nary beef-tea. You want to take a boilin' o' bones, an' boil for three hours, an' then skim well. After that you might let it cool some, an' then you add flavorin'. Not too much, an' not too little, jest so's to make it elegant tastin'. Then you cook toasties to go with it, or give 'em crackers. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... he has harnessed the water of the streams and the winds of heaven. He has tunnelled the mountains, bridged the rivers, and laid his cables beneath the ocean. He has learned to ride over land and sea and even to skim along the currents of the air. He has been able to discover the chemical elements that permeate matter and the nature and laws of physical forces. By numerous inventions he has made use of the materials and powers of nature. The physical universe is a challenge to human wits, a stimulus ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... were true that Messala had attained his utmost speed, the effort was with effect; slowly but certainly he was beginning to forge ahead. His horses were running with their heads low down; from the balcony their bodies appeared actually to skim the earth; their nostrils showed blood red in expansion; their eyes seemed straining in their sockets. Certainly the good steeds were doing their best! How long could they keep the pace? It was but the commencement of the sixth round. On they ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... moonbeams streaming over both tiers like water, gliding along the huge plates of zinc, and flowing over the edges of the vast superposed basins. Then frosty weather seemed to turn these roofs into rigid ice, like the Norwegian bays over which skaters skim; while the warm June nights lulled them into deep sleep. One December night, on opening his window, he had seen them white with snow, so lustrously white that they lighted up the coppery sky. Unsullied by a single footstep, they then stretched out like the lonely plains of the Far North, where never ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... 'a poet laid a table for men to eat and drink at. We'd Sir Walter's beef and bannocks, and puir young Byron's Athol brose. Wha calls this mingling o' skim milk an' treacle the wine o' the soul a poet ought ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... Dietary; General Composition; Digestibility; Sanitary Condition of Milk; Certified Milk; Pasteurized Milk; Tyrotoxicon; Color of Milk; Souring of Milk; Use of Preservatives in Milk; Condensed Milk; Skim Milk; Cream; Buttermilk; Goat's Milk; Koumiss; Prepared Milks; Human Milk; Adulteration of Milk; Composition of Butter; Digestibility of Butter; Adulteration of Butter; General Composition of Cheese; Digestibility; ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... Season with a bunch of seasonings composed of two sprigs of parsley, one of thyme, and a bay-leaf; salt and pepper to taste, and about half a pint of broth or water. Boil gently till cooked, remove the bunch of seasonings; skim off the fat, if any, and serve warm. It is served at breakfast, as well as ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot

... farm-boy goes, His shadow lengthens along the land, A giant staff in a giant hand; In the poplar-tree, above the spring, The katydid begins to sing; The early dews are falling;— Into the stone-heap darts the mink; The swallows skim the river's brink; And home to the woodland fly the crows, When over the hill the farm-boy goes, Cheerily calling,— "Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!" Farther, farther over the hill, Faintly calling, calling still,— "Co', boss! co', boss! ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... there you have practical bricklaying in a nutshell. Of course there are lots of other points in the book and some dandy pictures and it would pay you to read it. But in case you haven't time, just skim over this resume again and you will have ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... stretched out in quietude on either hand, with sunlight filtering between its deep bands of trees. At that hour the rays only illumined one side of the avenue, there gilding the lofty drapery of verdure; on the other, the shady side, the greenery seemed almost black. It was truly delightful to skim, swallow-like, over that royal avenue in the fresh atmosphere, amidst the waving of grass and foliage, whose powerful scent swept against one's face. Pierre and Marie scarcely touched the soil: it was as if wings had come to them, and were carrying ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... you," said he, "make haste and get something down; or drink a cup of coffee you're as blue as skim milk." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... first-rate city house is a regular sanatorium. The only trouble is, that the little good-for-nothings that come of utterly used-up and worn-out stock, and ought to die, can't die, to save their lives. So they grow up to dilute the vigor of the race with skim-milk vitality. They would have died, like good children, in most average country places; but eight months of shelter in a regulated temperature, in a well-sunned house, in a duly moistened air, with good sidewalks to go about on in all ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... mind, as a beginning. I felt the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a smoothness there was ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... are on the wing, Eager to taste the honeyed spring, And float amid the liquid noon, Some lightly on the torrent skim, Some show their gaily gilded trim, Quick glancing ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... they were obliged to lay to until a British man-of-war could lower a boat to investigate their errand. The coast is very shallow in this section, which permits boats of only the lightest draught to navigate in-shore, but the launch was able to skim over the surface at twelve miles ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne

... animals, nor savage men, are to be feared! If I feel too hot, I can ascend; if too cold, I can come down. Should there be a mountain, I can pass over it; a precipice, I can sweep across it; a river, I can sail beyond it; a storm, I can rise away above it; a torrent, I can skim it like a bird! I can advance without fatigue, I can halt without need of repose! I can soar above the nascent cities! I can speed onward with the rapidity of a tornado, sometimes at the loftiest ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... it is imperative that we hurriedly skim over the saddest and most serious by-product of United States slavery, race prejudice. We are familiar enough with the limitations of the man of color in the South today. In the days of slavery, discriminations were just as severe, if not more so, against ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... I am but repeating what I hear in my shop; as you may perceive, my eloquence is simply the cream which I skim off my clients' talk. Heaven forbid I should fetter my impartiality by entertaining an opinion. And for that same scholarly objection to the Greeks," added Nello, in a more mocking tone, and with a significant grimace, "the fact is, you are heretics, ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... heure!" cried Aristide, excitedly casting away his straw hat, which an unintentional twist of the wrist caused to skim horizontally and nearly decapitate a small and perspiring soldier who happened to pass by. "A la bonne heure! Let him divorce you. You are then free. You can be mine without ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... ones. Near the Tonse River, in the Allahabad District, I found these birds in July nesting high in a mango-tree, the nest suspended like an Oriole's to several leaves; now I find it in low bushes, at heights of from 3 to 5 feet from the ground. The eggs, as before, skim-milk blue, without markings ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... and allow it to boil slowly. Skim but do not stir. Boil until a little hardens in water. Then add the ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber

... not as much as by a tremor of the eye-lid did either show how delighted she would have been to sit beside the handsome young man and skim along the ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... as he swept along the ice under the starlight. Venus made a glowing path toward the west and seemed eager to reassure him. He was sorry he could not skim down that avenue of light which flowed from the love-star, but he was forced to turn his back upon it and face ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... one poem; it is made up of many "short swallow-flights of song that dip their wings in tears and skim away." There are one hundred thirty separate songs in all, held together by the silken thread of love for the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... ye Lowland lads, As birdies gay, as birdies gay, Oh, spare them, whistling like yoursel's, And hopping blythe from spray to spray! Their wings were made to soar aloft, And skim the air at liberty; And as you freedom gi'e to them, May you and yours be ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... unsaleable in market. In place of the steaming biscuit, golden butter, and delicious cream she had promised herself, there were huge slices of clammy bread, a plate of old-fashioned short-cake, yellow with saleratus; butter, that to say the least of it, was not inodorous, and a compound of skim milk and lukewarm water, dignified by the name of tea. Leaving it almost untasted, Clemence sought her couch, and was soon ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... amusement to me this first evening, scribbling as egotistically as usual about myself and my doings; so you must forgive me, as I know well your kind heart will do. I have managed to skim the newspaper, but had not heart to read all the bloody details. Good God! What will the end be? Perhaps we are too despondent here; but I must think you are too hopeful on your side of the water. I never believed the "canards" of the army of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... hardest, and finished, but with less deliberation. He grew more and more careless toward the books he counted of little consequence, while he imagined himself growing more and more capable of getting at the heart of a book by skimming its pages. If to skim be ever a true faculty, it must come of long experience in the art of reading, and is not possible to a beginner. To skim and judge, is to wake from a doze and give the ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald

... cleaver. Put the broken bones in a thin cloth sack and place this in a large kettle containing five gallons of cold water. Simmer—do not boil—for six or seven hours. Do not salt while simmering. Skim off all fat. This should make about five gallons of stock. Pack hot in glass jars, bottles or enameled or lacquered tin cans. Partially seal glass jars. Cap and tip tin cans. Sterilize forty minutes if using hot-water-bath outfit or condensed-steam outfit; ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray

... Abel Perry turned 'em out of that when the rent got behind. He's the meanest skinflint that ever strained skim milk. He got married again ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... of lord Ogleby. He has to skim the morning papers and serve out the cream of them to his lordship at breakfast, "with good emphasis and good discretion." He laughs at all his master's jokes, flatters him to the top of his bent, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... rally; With dance and song the woods resound: The hatchet's buried in the valley; No foe profanes our hunting-ground! The green leaves on the blithe boughs quiver, The verdant hills with song-birds ring, While our bark-canoes the river Skim like swallows on the wing. Mirth pervades the land and water, Free ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... distance of poor Specklems; and just in the midst of one of her smooth oily speeches she made a jump, open-mouthed and clawed, but missed her mark, for the starling gave one flip with his wing and was out of reach in an instant, and then, with a short skim, he alighted on the thin branch of a neighbouring tree, where he sat watching his treacherous enemy, who had fared very differently. Crash went Mrs Puss right through the prickly branches of the cedar, and came down with her back across ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn

... shame, had set Cato's face like a flint in opposition to Greek learning. "I will tell you about those Greeks," he wrote in his old age to his son Marcus, "what I discovered by careful observation at Athens, and how far I deem it good to skim through their writings, for in no case should they be deeply studied. I will prove to you that they are one and all, a worthless and intractable set. Mark my words, for they are those of a prophet: whenever ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... authorities in a logical succession. First I go over the period in some general history, if one is to be had; then I read very carefully my original authorities in the order of their estimated importance, making copious excerpts. Afterwards I skim my second-hand materials. Now I maintain that it is logical and natural to have the extracts before me in the order of my study. When unusually careful and critical treatment has been required, I have drawn off my memoranda from the notebooks to cards, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... of Welford, near Stratford, have shown the order Cheiroptera to be in genera and species. Their profiles and full faces, even in outline, are often most bizarre and strange. Their interfemoral membranes, we may add, are actual "unreticulated" nets, with which they catch and detain flies as they skim through the air. They pick these out of this bag with their mouths, and "make no bones" of any prey, so sharp and pointed are their pretty insectivorous teeth. Their flying membranes, stretched on the elongated finger-bones of their fore-legs, are wonderful adaptations ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... incessantly without fixing myself on any one, in order that nothing should escape me, principally attending to the doors. I took advantage of the opportunity to say a word here and a word there, to pass continually near those who were suspected, to skim and interrupt all conversations. D'Antin was often joined by the Duc de Noailles, who had resumed his habit of the morning, and continually followed me with his eyes. He had an air of consternation, was agitated and embarrassed ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... Score the rind of the slices and fry slowly until they are a golden brown. Make a milk gravy by heating flour in the fat that has been tried out, allowing two tablespoonfuls of fat and two tablespoonfuls of flour to each cup of milk. This is a good way to use skim milk, which is as rich in protein as whole milk. The pork and milk gravy served with boiled or baked potatoes makes a cheap and simple meal, but one that most people like very much. Bacon is often used in place of salt ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... obedience to thy command took out a suit of clean white clothes and gave it to the boy Abdullah; then kindled the fire and set on the broth. As soon as it was ready I had need to light a lamp so that I might see to skim it, but all the oil was spent, and, learning this I told my want to the slave-boy Abdullah, who advised me to draw somewhat from the jars which stood under the shed. Accordingly, I took a can and went to the first vessel when suddenly I heard a voice ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... sweeter and fresher than at other times; the sun bright and as yellow as gold, the wind lusty and strong, before which the great white clouds go sailing majestically across the bright blueness of the sky above, while their dusky shadows skim across the brown face of ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... raise de wheat, Dey gib us de corn; We bake de bread, Dey gib us de cruss; We sif de meal, Dey gib us de huss; We peal de meat, Dey gib us de skin, And dat's de way Dey takes us in. We skim de pot, Dey gib us the liquor, And say dat's good enough for nigger. Walk over! walk over! Tom butter and de fat; Poor nigger you can't get ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... crosses the heath at night bend clown until his face comes on a level with the tufts of grass, and he will see a strange spectacle outline itself against the western sky. Owls with great, round wings skim over the ground, invisible to any one standing upright. Snakes glide about there, lithe, quick, with narrow heads uplifted on swanlike necks. Great turtles crawl slowly forward, hares and water-rats flee before preying beasts, ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... was just such a man as Miss Fountain is a woman. He was but a dish of skim-milk, yet ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... overlooked a space of gardens where bright red and yellow flowers were planted in rhomboids, triangles, parallelograms, and other stiff and ugly figures, he would glance hastily through the papers and magazines. He was familiar with several foreign languages, and would skim through the text. Then he would pound the table with his fist, walk angrily about the floor, and tear the offensive journals into strips. For very often he found in these papers from abroad articles or cartoons that were most annoying to ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... the Conscientious Objector, the hotel-government bureaucrat, and other bulwarks of our united Empire. For the rest, you will want to cram into ten short days the average experiences of ten long weeks. If, like most of us, you are young and foolish, you will skim the bubbling froth of life and seek crowded diversion in the lighter follies, the passing shows, and l'amour qui rit. And you will probably return to the big things of war tired but mightily refreshed, and almost ready to welcome a further ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... at tangent to the surface. Once past whatever this barrier was, they could skim the surface and come back to land on the proper site. They backed the ship farther out into space. They made their thrust with ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... hogshead in which it had been stored, required sturdy appetites to make it even tolerable. Even in later days Frank T. Bullen was able to write: "I have often seen the men break up a couple of biscuits into a pot of coffee for their breakfast, and after letting it stand a minute or two, skim off the accumulated scum of vermin from the top—maggots, weevils, etc—to the extent of a couple of tablespoonsful, before they could shovel the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... eight ounces, Beeswax one ounce, Resin one ounce, Alum one ounce, Tallow one ounce, Sulphate of Iron one ounce, Carbolic Acid one drachm. Mix and boil over a slow fire. Skim off the filth and add two ounces of ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... skim o'er the heather, I dance up the street, I've foes that I laugh at, and friends that I greet; I'm known in the country, I'm named in the town, For all the world over extends my renown. Oh ho! oh ho! And who can I be, That sweep o'er the land and ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various

... Buckskin Horse was hitched to the surrey; and in the shafts of the buggy stood Hal the Red Roan. And that night the boys particularly wanted to ride behind Teddy. They liked to watch the black stripe that ran down his yellow back skim ahead of them over the road, just like a snake. And they liked the surrey, too. It had a fringe all around the top, and high mudguards, and a whip with a tassel and ribbon on it. But now that the great-aunts were in, Aunt Abby's side rose way up in the air, she was so light, ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... are clearing forests, making the face of nature smile, draining marshes, cultivating wheat, and converting it into flour; they yearly skim from the surface of the sea riches equally necessary. Thus, had I leisure and abilities to lead you through this continent, I could show you an astonishing prospect very little known in Europe; one diffusive scene of ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... know what a breakfast is, Mr Nutt," said John; "but I am afraid we can't introduce your good wife's receipt into college; our cows give nothing but skim-milk. Well, now we had better be off, if you mean to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... there is so little to unravel! Some books, we all know, you must 'chew and digest'; they can only be read slowly; but some you can glance at, skim, and skip; the mere turning of the pages tells you what little worth ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... strong exertion, and with weary bones, And knows no leisure; till the distant chime Of Sabbath bells he hears at sermon time, That down the brook sound sweetly in the gale, Or strike the rising hill, or skim the dale. ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... attacks with much vomiting and fever, all milk should be immediately stopped and rice water or barley water substituted. When vomiting ceases and the fever approaches normal and food is desired, begin with boiled skim milk in small amounts, well diluted with cereal water, and do not approach the normal amount of milk for twenty-four to forty-eight hours. In this way the weak digestive organs are not overtaxed and they gradually ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... cry. Then I returned to watch and see what the two women would do next. The contents of the pan were already frizzling. Now and then it boiled over into the fire and the flames shot up all round it. Then the old woman would skim it carefully with a spoon. And all the time they were ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... them off. Two or three hours later his wife got wearily up and was going away to bed without a good-night—custom now—but she stopped near the letter and eyed it awhile with a dead interest, then broke it open, and began to skim it over. Richards, sitting there with his chair tilted back against the wall and his chin between his knees, heard something fall. It was his wife. He sprang to her side, but she ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain

... it is the sail of a vessel—of one of those peroquas which skim over these seas; how she rises on the swell! She is full ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... finely chopped and free from fat. Proportions, 1 lb. beef to 1 pint of water, cold. Let the beef soak in the water, stirring occasionally, for two hours; then put it on the stove and heat it until the red color disappears; never boil it. Skim off ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... said she, 'to live amidst the coral bowers and crystal caverns of the ocean, with my sister nymphs, and listen to the sounding waters above, and to the soft shells of the tritons! and then, after sun-set, to skim on the surface of the waves round wild rocks and along sequestered shores, where, perhaps, some pensive wanderer comes to weep! Then would I soothe his sorrows with my sweet music, and offer him from a shell some of the delicious fruit that ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... of writhing flames, the brilliant car swept downwards from the sky, where it had waited. Almost, it seemed to skim the scarlet floor of the platform and to scoop up its owner, for none saw Apleon lift a foot to step into it, yet the next moment he was soaring away seated within the upper convolution of ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... distinguishable by the colours of their riders. The supreme moment came for me when they were exactly opposite the grand stand, full half a mile away—the moment that I remembered from year to year as one of exquisite illusion—for then the horses seemed to lift from the earth as with wings, and to skim over the track like a covey of low-flying birds. The finish was tame to this. Mrs. March and I had our wonted difference of opinion as to which horse had won, and we were rather uncommonly controversial because we had both decided upon the same horse, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Set in one clay, Bough to bough cannot you Bide out your day? When the rains skim and skip, Why mar sweet comradeship, Blighting ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... getting the first of it when we are only getting someone else's leavings. But it isn't for chicks of girls like you that a man cares, it isn't to you a man comes for the love he wants; your kisses are very skim milk indeed, and it is we who teach them the words of love that they murmur afterwards ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... of the tanks. But after the liquid is drawn off you can see them. When first melted the sugar is far from pure; you would be astonished at the amount of dirt mixed with it. Many of these impurities boil up to the surface and over and over again we skim them off. But even after that we have to wash the sugar by various processes. After it has been separated, clarified, and filtered it comes out a clear white liquid, and is ready for the vacuum pans, where the water is evaporated and the ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... children came brisk, and the wages came slack; and the farmer got the new reaping-machine, and my binding came to an end; and topping turnips for a few days in the foggy November mornings don't bring you in much, even when you havn't just had a baby. And the skim milk was long ago gone, and the leasing, and the sack of tail-wheat, and the cheap cheeses almost for nothing, and the hedge-clippings, and it was just the bare ten shillings a-week. So at last, when we had heard enough of eighteen shillings a-week up in London, and we scarce knew ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris

... his feelings or fancy. While thus employed, he unconsciously fell asleep. Wassamo had scarcely noticed it in his care to watch the kettle, and, when the fish were done, he took the kettle off. He spoke to his cousin, but received no answer. He took the wooden ladle to skim off the oil, for the fish were very fat. He had a flambeau of twisted bark in one hand to give light; but, when he came to take out the fish, he did not know how to manage to hold the light, so he ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous

... removed seem shore and stream, From sound and sight of mart or mill, That Kilcokonen's painted braves Might roam my woods and marshes still. And still, as in the days of yore, Ere yet the white man's sail I knew, Upon my amber waves might skim The ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... which stuck to our boots by the pound, peering through bitter cold mist which seemed but a thinner skim of mud, drenched by flurries of icy drops shaken from the atmosphere by a passing moan and a crash, breathing air heavy with a sweet, horrible, penetrating odor—such was the world as it existed for an hour one night, while I and the Commandant of Douaumont wandered ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... volume—with a snap, and skimmed it deftly from where he sate, into his large waste-paper basket. This, by the way, was a curious little accomplishment of his,—throwing things with unerring aim. He could skim more cards across a room into a hat than anyone I have ever seen who was not ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... gotten those women?" Judith asked. The helio was slanting downward, and was now less than five miles distant from the fast vanishing bus. It began to skim the tree tops of a great tract of spruce, its chauffeur awaiting Mason's signal to drop quickly out of their ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden

... rushing down to the brink. "I don't want to throw stones into it, but to get near it—to get near to any bit of nature. They do pen you up so from it in Europe!" She stood and watched Colville skim stones over the current. "When you stand by the shore of a swift river like this, or near a railroad train when it comes whirling by, don't you ever have a morbid ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... day we fish, and at eve we stand On long bare islands of yellow sand. And when the sun sinks slowly down, And the great rock-walls grow dark and brown, When the purple river rolls fast and dim, And the ivory Ibis starlike skim, Wing to wing we ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... with tingling fingers she threw off her costly gown and put on her dark travelling suit again. She left her hair as it was and knotted a crimson scarf about her head. She would slip away quietly to the boathouse, get Davy to launch the little sailboat for her—and then for a fleet skim over the harbour before that glorious wind! She hoped not to be seen, but Mrs. Cameron met her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Raghoos, Mahadoos and others whose names even have grown dim, I discern only a monotony of provocation. The fine figure of old Bindaram stands out as an exception, but then he was a coachman, and the coachman is to the Ghorawalla, what cream is to skim milk. The unmitigated Ghorawalla is a sore disease, one of those forms of suffering which raise the question whether our modern civilization is anything but a great spider, spinning a web of wants and their accompanying ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... into a large pot, and add half a table-spoonful of salt. Hang it over a good fire, as early as six o'clock in the morning, if you dine at two. When it has come to a hard boil, and the scum has risen, (which it will do as soon as it has boiled,) skim it well. Do not remove the lid more frequently than is absolutely necessary, as uncovering the pot causes the flavour to evaporate. Then set it on hot coals in the corner, and keep it simmering steadily, adding fresh coals so as to continue a ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... boiling water. Add one tablespoon salt, one-half teaspoon peppercorns, a bit of bay leaf, one carrot sliced, one turnip sliced, and one-half onion sliced. Add two sprays each of parsley and thyme and one of marjoram. Cover and heat to boiling point. Skim when necessary. Reduce heat and simmer until meat is tender (four or five hours). Remove to serving platter. Strain stock and use for soup or sauces. Serve meat with hot Horseradish Sauce. (For recipe see ...
— Fifty-Two Sunday Dinners - A Book of Recipes • Elizabeth O. Hiller

... be reasonable, tuck up our sleeves and look after our cooking ourselves, and not insist that heaven should put itself out of the way to skim our soup. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... valleys, and there is no bed of a great river, no gulf allowing the sea to flow inland, spreading moisture by abundant evaporation. In the eighth and tenth degrees of latitude, in regions where the clouds do not, as it were, skim the surface of the soil, many trees are stripped of their leaves in the months of January and February; not by the sinking of the temperature as in Europe, but because the air at this period, the most distant from the rainy season, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... oh! how lovely!" shrieked the girl. "And its mamma wants to rough it! She shall have every egg and chicken on the place—and gallons of cream! We shall take the skim milk." ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... tell you it's got oil on it. Best indications I ever saw. There's a drinking well, only the water ain't fit to drink till you skim off the 'rainbow.' Then there's a wonderful seepage into the creek. You can see the oil oozing out from under the bank, in ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... be delightful to skim over the waters, and visit countries far away," said the boy, his cheeks flushing, and his eyes ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... sheds and barns, which were hidden in a hollow a few rods away. Here he showed her his ice-houses, his huge churns, and his mammoth "separator" that went whirling around, dividing the cream from hundreds of gallons of milk in the time it would have taken her to skim ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... its visit might not be betrayed, and she heard it turn cautiously into the back-country road. After a little while she saw a glare shoot out before the car—its lamps had been lighted—and she saw it skim rapidly away. Soon the second car crept out, took the high back-country pike, and ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... tobacco. The priest had given potatoes; the clergyman had supplied a copy of the Bible in syllabic characters; and the minister had given the silver-plated wedding ring. The nuns had presented a supply of skim-milk and butter. Mr. Spear provided jam, pickles, and coal-oil for the lamps. The Mounted Police contributed two dollars to pay for the "band"—the fiddle and the concertina—and ammunition enough for the feu de joie. The friends and relations had given a plentiful store of fresh, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... thus-called well-informed Americans rather skim over than thoroughly study history. Above all, it applies to the general history of the Christian era, and of our great epoch (from the second half of the 18th century). Most of the Americans are only very superficially familiar with the history of continental Europe, or know ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... small tradespeople to their business; entire families skate from the country to the town with their bags and baskets on their shoulders or drive in sledges. Skating to them is as habitual and easy as walking, and they skim along so rapidly that one can scarcely follow them with the eye. In past years bets were commonly made between the best Dutch skaters that they would skate down the canals on either side of the railway as fast as the train could go; and usually ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it, plenty of time to skim through the newspaper. With the chronic worry of the unemployed, he snapped it open at the want-ads and ran his eye down the Help Wanted—Robot column. There was nothing for him under the Specialist heading, even the Unskilled Labor listings were bare and unpromising. ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison

... forces of their hostile horde; They swiftly skim the waves, and steer, and sail; Their masts and yards so blazing with the light Of carbuncles and lanterns, night gives up Its darkness and still fairer shows the sea. As they approached the shores of Spain, the land Was all aglow, and tidings ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier

... rising to a continuous wave along the side, catches the sunlight and a perpetual rainbow dances in it, changing always but remaining ever. Whew! What a rush! Flying fish. Look at them! These are the first we have seen so near; when they spring out of the water like that and skim along in the air they are not doing it for fun, but to escape a bitter enemy in the water, the bonito, a ferocious large fish who preys upon them; he is their chief foe, but there are many others also. They curve up all together like a glittering bow and slither down again. In dropping back ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... watched the nearer one till it faded from sight, soaring and swooping by turns,—its long, scissors-shaped tail all the while fully spread,—but never coming down, as its habit is said to be, to skim over the surface of the water. There is nothing more beautiful on wings, I believe: a large hawk, with a swallow's grace of form, color, and motion. I saw it once more (four birds) over the St. Mark's River, ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey



Words linked to "Skim" :   read, glide, reading, examine, surface, see, take, throw, withdraw, take away, touch, remove, covering, nonfat, cover, fat-free, coat, natural covering, fatless, aquaplane



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