skirt n.
1. a woman, usu. an attractive woman.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Coburg Leader (Vic.) 1 June 4/5: Charley J. down East hooked an allright piece of black velvet [...] surely it was’nt his Sunday skirt. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘Mollie Matches’ in Sandburrs 47: I’m goin’ along wit’ an old fat skirt, called Mother Worden. | |
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 30: Aw, them skoits is dopes, on the dead level. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Lonely Plough (1931) 157: Two of the maids have threatened to give notice if he goes on calling them ‘Skirts’. | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 7 Mar. 5/2: If C.T. doesn’t let the City skirt alone, ‘Sport’ is going to tell his Balaklava girl. | |
| New York Day by Day 17 Jan. [synd. col.] He inquired of the chauffeur just who the ‘skirt’ was. | |
| Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 24 Dec. 24/2: However slight the excuse for slang at any time there is too little excuse nowadays for referring to a girl as a ‘skirt’. | |
| White Light Nights 19: A self-appointed ‘Mayor,’ [...] and his ‘skoit’ Nellie, the best ‘spieler’ in the dance halls. | |
| (con. WW1) Patrol 41: ‘Topper [...] what’s the dick like out in Wopland?’ [...] ‘What about the skirt?’. | |
| (con. 1900s–10s) 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 322: Hendrix said he’d picked up with a skirt that was a warm baby and he was getting his nookie every night. | |
| Gun for Sale (1973) 142: I don’t fall for girls [...] You won’t find me ever going soft on a skirt. | |
| in Limerick (1953) 293: A vigorous fellow named Bert / Was attracted by every new skirt. | |
| Rusty Bugles I iv: ollie.: I haven’t seen a sheila for seventeen months. chris.: Yes you have. You seen the abo skirt. | |
| Corner Boy 90: Go on, chase the skirt, I don’t mind. | |
| We Think The World Of You (1971) 94: What are you sticking out your eyes at? A skirt, I suppose. | |
| ‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xl 4/5: skirt: Female. | |
| (con. c.1900) King Blood (1989) 39: This scared-to-death little skirt. | |
| After Hours 47: ‘Get killed over a big money deal, not over a bottle of wine and a skirt’. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Belfast 111: This skirt was a smasher. | |
| Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 30: Anyway, these two skirts have lunch on an airplane. | |
| Guardian Sport 1 Jan. 16: A handy piece of spic skirt. | |
| Chinese Girl (2001) 191: And the Chinky skirt should go home, save her having another accident. | |
| Drop Dead, My Lovely (2005) 1: She was a tall skirt, maybe five eight. | |
| Widespread Panic 55: Hustle up some good-looking skirts. |
2. a generic term for women as a group.
| Further Adventures of Captain Kettle 298: If any of you rats of men shove your way down here [...] before all the skirt is ferried across, you’ll get knocked on the head. | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 8 Mar. 12/4: They Say [...] That Alick M and Harold R are fond of motor trips to Mannum. Any skirt up there, boys, or is the beer better? | |
| Twenty Below Act I: Has he had all the swell skirt I’ve had? | |
| Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 97: You know what lags are [...] when there’s any skirt about. | |
| London Fields 79: What she expect? Moaning on. Baby this. Baby that. Can’t sleep. Babies is what skirt does. | |
| Observer Mag. 5 Sept. 33: Chasing skirt, usually in the form of impressionable young European and American students. | |
| Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] If can get those rural dorks [...] not [to] spend the shift keeping a look out for skirt to pull over. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | (con. 1980s) Skagboys 239: Besides, wars over skirt, you can forget it. | |
| (con. 1943) Coorparoo Blues [ebook] [T]hey’d spent a great deal of time chasing skirt up and down Piccadilly’s back streets. |
3. attrib. use of sense 2.
| Shorty McCabe on the Job 65: Didn’t know Pyramid ever had any skirt complications. | |
| Broadway Brevities Aug. 40/2: His alcoholic skirt parties can not be conducted in his own quarters in the 57th street hostelry. | |
| Life at the Bottom 188: Place is becomin’ Skirt City. | |
| Hilliker Curse 7: My mom told a friend that my dad craved skirt action. |
4. (UK black) as sense 1 but used of a lesbian.
| ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 12 Oct. 10/6: This is a tale of two perverts..of love existing between two ‘skirts’. |
In compounds
the pursuit of women.
| [perf. Vesta Tilley] Sidney’s in Civvies Again 🎵 Sidney's in civvies again. Sidney's home once more / He’s done fighting on the far off shore / [...] /But he's still got military ways, though he's on a skirt campaign. |
(orig. W.I./US) a Don Juan, a habitual and dedicated ladies’ man; thus skirt-chasing, womanizing.
| Hiawatha Dly World (KS) 17 June 1/4: Nowawdays the booze fighter and skirt chaser can’t hold a place on a ball club. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Winnipeg Trib. (Manitoba) 15 Sept. 32/2: ‘We can’t have any skirt-chasers on this club [...] we’re in the business of winning ball games, we’ll let the lizards win the ladies’. | |
| Tropic Death (1972) 172: A pack o’ rum-drinkin’, skirt-chasin’ scoundrels – dat’s wuh duh is! | |
| ‘Revolt of the Damned’ in Double-Action Gang June 🌐 I guess those skirt chasing bastards will think twice. | |
 | Pittsburgh Post-Gaz. (PA) 21 Dec. 47/4: He is a born skirt-chaser. | |
| ‘Pat Hobby’s Christmas Wish’ in Pat Hobby Stories (1967) 27: Yeah, he was a skirt chaser then. | |
| Under the Whip 15: His sort always put skirt-chasing before anything else. | |
| We Are the Public Enemies 134: A good looking skirt-chaser. | |
| Blackboard Jungle 321: I’m gonna let you have this skirt-chaser, this Satan of the Satin Slip. | |
| Great Aust. Gamble 66: [M]odernising Sherlock Holmes into some hard-drinking, fist-swinging, skirt-chasing ‘private eye’. | |
| (con. 1916) Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 23: He was [...] the most single-minded chaser of skirts. | |
| Olive of Minerva 43: Sure I was a skirt-chaser, a fleshy josher. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 82: A chippie chaser is a skirt chaser. | |
| Typical American (1998) 38: It was what a skirt chaser deserved. | |
| Portable Promised Land (ms.) 44: A man who could outchase the fastest skirt-chaser. | |
| Dly Record (Mirristown, NJ) 22 May 48/1: The man I have been seeing for almost two years [...] is a skirt-chaser. |
obsessed by women.
| ‘You’ll Always Remember Me’ in Penzler Pulp Fiction (2007) 179: ‘Skirt crazy! Skirt crazy!’; mumbled the guy. |
of a woman, the practice of acting in a way designed to attract men; of a man, associating with women.
| Ulysses 758: He was throwing his sheeps eyes at those two doing skirt duty up and down. | |
| AS XLVII:1–2 102: That evening, Jim detailed himself to some more ‘skirt duty’. |
see under foist n.2
a lesbian.
| Traveller’s Tool 21: Probably run by a bunch of stoney-faced old skirt-lifters. |
(US black) a man who is dominated by his female partner.
| Lex. Black Eng. 87: Because she restricts his movements, however, he is scornfully described as a skirtman. |
(US campus) a party to which women are invited.
| Star-Gaz. (Elmira, NY) 15 May 4/3: Yale College Slang [...] Williams was diked out to beat the band and was bound for a skirt party somewhere. |
(US) the activity of wandering around looking for female companionship.
| You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Skirt Patrol: Looking for dames. | |
| (con. WWII) Father of the Man Prologue: He’d show a wallet photo of his wife like it was a holy card, but he went out on skirt patrol pretty regular. |
In phrases
a woman.
| Truth (Sydney) 17 Apr. 3/1: [O]ne mounted policeman [...] demanded free admission [to a circus] for himself and his ‘bit o’ skirt’ . | |
| Worcs. Chron. 7 July 6/2: He made love to, an’ eventually married, a bit o’ skirt as black as the ace o’ spades. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Dec. 27/4: You and yer yeller-haired piece? [...] Think I don’t know nothin’, young feller? Yes! I’m a married man – or used to be. I’ll tell you about it if you like – jest to show you wot a bit o’ fancy skirt can do. | |
| Times Democrat (New Orleans, LA) 31 July 47/4: The ‘bit of skirt’ gave him an encouraging smile. | |
| [ | | Truth (Brisbane) 25 July 3/4: ‘The Giptians, rags an’ all, are better than all your talent; they don't go sneakin’ a cobber's bit o skirt when he’s away’. |
| Rising Sun 25 Dec. 8/1: I sneaks along to barricks, and I tries to dodge the guard, / When I hears a voice say, ‘Who goes there,’ I says ‘It’s me, old pard.’ / He takes me to the sergeant who shoves me in the klink, / And all because I dallied with a bit of skirt in pink. | |
| Derby Dly Teleg. 9 Oct. 6/5: ‘Why was Adam the first butcher?’ — ‘Because he exchanged a rib for a bit of skirt’. | |
| ‘Bagpipe Music’ in Coll. Poems 97: It’s no go the Yogi-Man, it’s no go Blavatsky, / All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi. | |
| Chicago Sun. Trib. 10 Nov. part 7 4/5: She was Alfred’s bit of skirt. | |
| At Night All Cats Are Grey 103: Yon lemonade-drinking string of misery would condemn a man because he was fond of a jar and a bit of skirt. | |
| (con. WWII) Soldier Erect 105: Their pushers, their bits of skirt, were evidently dispatched with amazing aplomb. | |
| Holden’s Performance (1989) 333: That bit of skirt of yours in Manly, time you stopped frigging about with her. | |
| Midnight Come 157: Trying to get off with a bit of skirt, more like! |
to have sexual intercourse.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
In exclamations
(US) a general excl. of abuse, aimed at a woman.
| Man with the Golden Arm 41: ‘Up your dirty skirt!’ he called back. |