Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see separate entry.

to cause to be facing decline; thus the skids are under someone, describing someone in decline.

1931		(con. 1900s) C.W. Willemse Behind The Green Lights 125: No wonder they have the skids under you [...] You’ll land in jail yet. Get out!
1939		Dos Passos Adventures of a Young Man 264: I don’t seem to know anybody round headquarters any more . . . I guess they’ve got the skids under me all right.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 217: The old crook discovers he is an unwanted commodity immediately the ‘skids are under him’.
1955		F.B. Vickers Mirage (1958) 299: The skids are under him. Old man Trew happened to drive up while there was a bit of an all-in go outside your bloke’s humpy [...] Yes, he’s in the blue. They’re going to kick him out.

(US) to dismiss from a job.

1911

D. Runyon ‘Melody of Minor League’ 25 Mar. [synd. verse] I’ve sent up some kids since they gave me the skids — but, pussonly, I’ll never go back.

(orig. US) to suffer problems, whether professional or personal.

1916		Daily Missourian (Columbia, MO) 18 Sept. 3/3: German Animal Trade Fails [...] Germany’s jabberwork market has hit the skids.
1919		Tucumcari News & Times (NM) 16 Oct. 2/2: Cincinnati newspapers are sending scribes out to watch the Giants hit the skids.
1927		J.B. Hendryx ‘System’ in Underworld Sept. 🌐 And, take it from me, because you’re right, is the reason you’re going to hit the greased skids, bo.
1936		R.L. Bellem ‘Falling Star’ in Spicy Detective Sept. 🌐 She’d started hitting the skids as a box-office attraction. [...] she was losing her hold on the public; her films were turning out to be flops.
1941		Anniston Star (AL) 2 June 10/3: The major-league pacemakers have hit the skids.
1953		‘Curt Cannon’ ‘The Death of Me’ in I Like ’Em Tough (1958) 104: I knew him before he hit the deep skids.
1966		Times (Munster, IN) 13 June 1/6: Vacant strip houses are sleeping quarters for some of those who ‘hit the skids’.
1978		R.D. Pharr Giveadamn Brown (1997) 39: Harlem [...] had already begun to hit the skids.
1983		R. Price Breaks 307: The last ten years were hell . . . and when I hit the skids I landed hard.
1990		R.G. Barratt ‘Who’s Jack of Robbo?’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] Clive spat the dummy at Seven around the same time as Skase hit the skids.
1999		Eve. Standard 28 May 52: Her chart career had already hit the skids.
2004		R. Graham In Every Pew Sits a Broken Heart 48: These disciplines were necessary for my spiritual growth; but when my life hit the skids, I found the disciplines critical for my survival.
2007		S. Maloney Sucked In 87: Everything turned to shit [...] He hit the skids and hit the bottle.
2014		Tampa Bay Times (St Petersburg, FL) PM2/3A high-end Manhattan firm [...] has suddenly hit the skids: .

1. on a social and economic decline.

1936		(con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 1067: They say he’s pretty near on the skids.
1943		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 290: A surly and pessimist Druid, / A defeatist, if only he knew it, / Said, ‘The world’s on the skids.’.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 256: ‘I’m on the skids, Jimmy’ he says. ‘I may lose my preselection this year.’.
1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 76: Probably a diamond-cutter on the skids.
1963		C. Rohan Down by the Dockside 212: I take you, Charlie, for a small time crim on the skids.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 279: Other men had [...] gone on to a better life. I was on the kids.
1974		P. Larkin ‘Posterity’ in High Windows 27: Just let me put this bastard on the skids, / I’ll get a couple of semesters leave.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 185: A few generations ago, they mattered but not any more. They’re on the skids.
1998		C. Fleming High Concept 215: Simpson and Bruckheimer were on the skids as partners.
2003		Bug (Aus.) Aug. 🌐 With the Brumbies on the skids and the Knights near-nutted, The Canberra Rodents look equally rooted.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 147: The organization was on the skids.
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 266: ‘Harsh, you asshole, your jewelry-store score is on the fucking skids’.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 109: Tattle told the torchy tale [...] Babs screeched into the skids.

2. (N.Z.) of an event, to commence, to be set in motion [the image of launching a new boat].

1953

I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 9: Hitler marched into Poland and World War 2 was on the skids.

1. to dismiss someone from a job; to end a relationship.

1921		Broadway Brevities Dec 11/2: After having the skids put under her by L. Lawrence Weber [...] she skipped to the coast and put the works into Jack Dillon.
1929		D. Hammett Red Harvest (1965) 119: ‘What did Noonan put the skids under you for?’ ‘Skids? What skids? I quit.’.
1938		M. Rand ‘Clip-Joint Chisellers’ in Ten Story Gang Aug. 🌐 Your broad, the big blonde, is slipping you the skids [...] she’s nuts about that Blinkie guy.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 171/1: Put the skids to. To get rid of.
1967		M. Frayn Towards the End of Morning (2000) 14: The eternal problem of how we may best put the skids under out friend Mounce.

2. to make someone hurry up, usu. in doing their work.

1966

P. Boyle At Night All Cats Are Grey 169: If I went out with Herbie a couple of nights [...] do you think would it put the skids under Willie?

3. to terminate.

2023

(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 1264: A right-wing nut job wrote a crazy tract about the two of you and Monroe. I put the skids to it.

4. (also throw the skids under) to hasten someone’s downfall.

1902		Sun (NY) 12 Oct. 18/2: Brighton put the skids under me and I’ve been keeping off [i.e. betting] since.
1915		S. Ford Torchy, Private Sec. 122: I wonder if I’ve got time to work up some scheme of puttin’ the skids under him?
1917		Hall & Niles One Man’s War (1929) 278: If Alexander Kerenski is the man he said he was, he will handle those babies rough; if not, they’ll put the skids under him yet.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 157: They’ll never know I threw the skids under them.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 154: Well Joe [...] you sure put the skids under me.
1936		L. Pound ‘American Euphemisms for Dying’ in AS XI:3 199: They put the skids under him and kicked him into the Great Beyond.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 132: My booking agent [...] must have put the skids under me as soon a she got my wire.
1952		T.A.G. Hungerford Ridge and River (1966) 49: He could put the skids under this schoolboy as easily as falling off a log – no, he couldn’t, the poor beggar was at rock-bottom now.
1965		H. Rhodes Chosen Few (1966) 140: Somebody’s got t’put th’ skids under that fat fuck.
1970		C. Brown Down All the Days 231: It’s Stalin we bloody well want here, you know? [...] He’d soon put the skids under them big fat capitalist bastards.
1985		O. Hawkins Chili 61: He had tried to put the skids under me, knowing how limited his chances were.
1945		Knoxville News-Sentinel (TN) 30 Nov. 14/1: You can expect the Commodores to put the skids under Stephens tomorrow.

5. to bring to a conclusion.

1919		H.C. Witwer Smile A Minute 237: We talked about the baseball situation, which, of course, they ain’t no thing at present. I certainly am sorry they put the skids under the greatest game in the world.
1970		in P.R. Runkel Law Unto Themselves 65: That accidental piece of good luck put the skids on the convent.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 53: If he hasn’t named Guy’s cutout by then, we can put the skids to all this.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 80: ‘Don’t put the skids to this [conversation] too fast’.

to get rid of.

1929

S.J. Perelman Dawn Ginsbergh’s Revenge 186: To think you having the gall to shove the skids under me!