Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) to abscond, to run off.

1876		Besant & Rice Golden Butterfly III 53: You jest gather up your traps and skin out of this.
1882		W.A. Baillie-Grohman Camps in the Rockies 383: You’d better skin (leave).
1887		F. Francis Jr Saddle and Mocassin 126: They’d all skinned out, every man Jack of them.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 31 Aug. 2/2: ‘I would skin up the street till I couldn’t rest, / In less time than it takes to tell’.
1900		A.H. Lewis ‘Crime That Failed’ in Sandburrs 77: We skins over to Jersey.
1904		W. Churchill The Crossing 299: ‘Skin out o’ here afore I kill ye,’ he shouted.
1912		D. Lowrie My Life in Prison 125: I jus’ packed my duds and skinned out.
1925		N. Lucas Autobiog. of a Thief 33: A young ‘shellback’ who had ‘skinned out’ from his indentures.
1930		‘Leslie Charteris’ Enter the Saint 80: It was no use simply skinning out any old how.
1939		P. Gallagher My Story 163: As soon as he got to know the circumstances he packed his kit and skinned out.
1975		(con. 1900s) G. Swarthout Shootist 85: We can skin out of town with no one the wiser.

2. to move at speed.

1903		Ade ‘Why “Gondola” Was Put Away’ in In Babel 41: So we skinned over the fence an come to the buildin’.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 513: I gotta skin over to Petaluma to-morrow.