Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a maid of all work.

1901		Western Times 6 Feb. 2/4: The ‘domestic servant problem’ is developing apace [...] typified by the fine arts and music lying dormant in the breast of many a present day ‘skivvy’.
1902		H. Baumann Londinismen (2nd edn).
1913		A. Lunn Harrovians 31: You owe me a bob . . . yes, you do, you borrowed it from me to tip the skivvy.
1920		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘A Best Seller’ Sporting Times 17 Jan. 1/3: To ‘skivs’ with cash saved while in ‘sarvice’ / All sorts of romances he told.
1923		Dly Herald 16 June 1/6: Servants [...] complained of being known [...] as ‘so and so’s skivvy’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 6: I pinched it out of the skivvy’s room, Buck Mulligan said.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 42: You took a place as a skivvy.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 97: I didn’t know the Governor had a new skivy.
1946		(con. 1912) B. Marshall George Brown’s Schooldays 17: Are you frightened that matron or the skivvies will see your hairy loins?
1953		B. Behan Scarperer (1966) 92: It’s the prayer of an old Irish skivvy.
1958		A. Sillitoe Sat. Night and Sun. Morning 36: Arthur, in his more tolerant moments, said that women were more than ornaments and skivvies.
1962		B. Behan Brendan Behan’s Island (1984) 149: She said she was no skivvy.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 25: According to himself, there wasn’t a scivvie in Rathmines that he hadn’t flung one up.
1968		Coventry Standard 8 Feb. 8/1: In ‘The Hostage,’ Angela is a skivvy in a disorderly house.
1972		J.B. Keane Letters of Irish Parish Priest 22: I stayed in the rode in the cold for a hole hour and he roaring come in you effin skiv for the rich.
1974		D. Ireland Burn 49: That’s it, leave everything to me. I’ll be the skivvy. It’s a wonder you don’ ask me to wipe your bottoms.
1988		R. Doyle Commitments 85: I’m no skivvy, said Jimmy. – I’m your fuckin’ manager, pal.
1999		Guardian Guide 16–22 Oct. 87: I’ve been treated like a real skivvy.
2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 96: The skivvies come to collect the food.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 222: [A]ll for the same pitiful petty dinarli of the skivvies they’re [i.e. showgirls] imitating.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1929		Western Morn. News 12 Feb. 11/3: Two hundred and seven girls went into factories, and 166 became ‘little skivvy girls’.
1972		Dly Mirror 20 Mar. 15/5: [headline] I’m no skivvy wife.
2008		Observer 12 Oct. 🌐 Half the poor children in Britain have parents who are working in low-paid skivvy jobs.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 281: [H]is skivvie forelock extended half a metre from his abject forehead.