skate n.
1. an inferior horse.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Barkeep Stories 82: ‘[T]hey ain’t got you again de horses, have they?’ ‘Again de horses! Wot d’you mean — bettin’ on dem skates? Nix — not fer me!’. | |
| Get Next 13: I haven’t bet a nickle on a skate for two years. | |
| ‘By a Hair’ in Old Man Curry 82: I’ve seen the horse myself, ain’t I [...] I had the skate in my barn for nearly a month. | |
 | National Turf Digest (Baltimore, MD) Dec. 929/2: A ‘skate’ is a horse having no class whatever. | |
| ‘Princess O’Hara’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 439: A slow trot, such as the old skates that pull these victorias usually employ. | |
| Jive and Sl. |
2. (US) in pl., shoes.
| Cincinnati Enquirer 7 Sept. 10/7: Skates—Shoes. | |
| Daily Trib. (Bismarck, ND) 23 Oct. 4/1: A shirt is a ‘smish;’ shoes are ‘skates.’. | |
| Sun (NY) 21 May 28/1: ‘If I make fifty or sixty bills dis winter I’ll buy myself some new skates (shoes)’. | |
| More Ex-Tank Tales 55: A pair of toothpick patent leather skates. | |
| How I Became a Detective 95: Skates — Shoes. | |
| Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 13 June 19/3: Skates — Shoes. |
3. a second-rate sportman.
| S.F. Breeder and Sportsman (baseball supplement) n.p.: ‘Skates’ and ‘wafters’ are kept in the team simply because at one time they were alleged good players by some sand lot critic. |
4. a person, irrespective of qualities.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Signor Lippo 100: When a regiment is coming home or a ship is to be paid off. He’ll go aboard and let the skates have a watch, nine carat gold chain coloured up to eighteen carat, letting ’em have the super and slang on mace, for he gets to know their account, and he puts the pot on ’em settling day. The Tommies he works by weekly instalments. | |
| You Know Me Al (1984) 150: Little Al is a homely little skate but I guess all babys is homely. | |
| Home to Harlem 284: He was a pretty good skate for a sweetman. | |
| God Sends Sun. 40: It’s a Gawd’s shame you ain’t wearin them pretty rags instead o’ de ugly skates that live in there. | |
| (con. 1920s) Hoods (1953) 171: He was a pretty good skate. |
5. (Aus./US) a drunken spree, thus buckle on one’s skates, pinch a skate, to get drunk.
| Star-Gaz. (Elmira, NY) 15 May 4/3: Yale College Slang [...] Top ‘pinch a skate’ is to arrive at a mild state of inebriation, and may be expressed by ‘getting skated,’ ‘buckling on your skates’ and other fanciful euphemisms. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 27 Apr. 8/7: [from S.F. Bulletin] The luscious jag had grown a-weary of his skate and determined to sober up. |
6. (also skater) a mean or contemptible person.
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 59: skate, n. 2. A contemptuous epithet applied to a mean fellow, especially one who does not pay his debts. 3. A cad, in the phrase ‘a cheap skate’. | |
| Peck’s Bad Boy Abroad 119: My Dear Old Skate. | |
| Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I xi: Get out of here—you dirty skate! | |
| White Moll 89: You dirty skates! [...] You were going to bump me off, were you? | |
| Bulldog Drummond 247: Their proper leaders have sure failed them, so they’re running after that bunch of cross-eyed skaters. | |
| This Gutter Life 81: The bastards are mad skates, of course! | |
| Horse’s Mouth (1948) 92: The voice of the skate came through the yard window. | |
| Caretaker Act I: The filthy skate. | |
| Submariners II i: That little skate. | |
| Awaydays 95: So basically, Elvis, Carty gives the bald skate what for while the other poor bitch is crying cos you can’t get a hard-on? |
7. (US campus) a reckless person.
| ‘College Words & Phrases’ in DN II:i 59: skate, n. A reckless fellow. |
8. an old person.
| ‘Crime That Failed’ Sandburrs 80: This old skate in petticoats goes toinin’ nutty ag’in about d’ empty house. | |
| Let Tomorrow Come 88: You don’t like to see an old skate like that kick out. | |
| ‘Madame La Gimp’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 251: He turns out to be a pretty nice old skate. |
9. (US black) free admission.
| Washington Trib. (DC) 16 Mar. 13/5: The [...] Tennis Board has about decided to charge admission [...] The pub has been getting a ‘skate’ since 1926. |
10. a (rundown) automobile.
| ‘Coffin for a Coward’ Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 ‘And gun this skate,’ I added, flashing my special tin. ‘I’m on police business.’. |
11. (US) a lazy person, a shirker.
| Current Sl. I:3 18: Skate, n. A person who loafs [...] or who disappears at the mention of work. |
12. (US teen) a motorcycle.
| Current Sl. V:3. |
13. (US campus) an easy course or task; an opportunity to relax, to be lazy.
| (con. 1969) Grunts 78: It wouldn’t be a real long hump, but it wouldn’t be a real skate either. | |
| (con. 1970) 13th Valley (1983) 321: Normally resupply day was a skate, a day the command cut the boonierats some slack. |
14. (S.Afr., also skuit) ‘a disreputable white male (from a working-class background) whose behaviour is uncouth, hedonistic, and irresponsible’ (DSAE); also attrib. [note Afk. skuit, excreta].
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Frontline Oct. 58: This is the skuit (or skate, if you’re saying it in English). In colloquial Afrikaans the word refers to excretion, but [...] the people thus labelled consider it a term of endearment. Which says something about the skates [...] They’re South Africa’s answer to the punks or the skinheads of Britain. Nihilists. [Ibid.] 61: The skate has his own dialect ... ‘I got a graft, a cabbie, I got stukkies, booze, and I got zol. I tune you, mate, if I can get one mamba chow a day, I scheme life is kif’ [...] Jonathan Handley [...] has been making a study of the skate subculture. [...] ‘The skate.. is unemployed, lives with his parents, and has no direction in life ... He isn’t the rebel without a cause. He is no longer the romantic that the ducktail was’ [DSAE]. |
15. (US) an act of evasion; freedom from arrest, a verdict of ‘not guilty’ .
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 226: ‘I’m cooking up something that could get you a skate’. |
In compounds
(US teen) a fanatical skateboarder.
| Baltimore Sun (MD) 23 July 21/4: Unlike the Skate Rat, the surfer sort is a clean-cut [...] kid. | |
| Sl. U. |
(UK Und.) the practice of posing as a sailor for the purposes of begging; thus skate lurker n., the beggar.
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. | |
| Sailor’s Word-Bk (1991) 628: Skate-Lurker. A cant word for a begging imposter dressed as a sailor. | |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Sunderland Dly Echo 9 Apr. 5/3: A begging imposter dressed as a sailor is termed a ‘skates lurk’. |
In phrases
(US) to go fast, to hurry up.
| Buffalo Enquirer (NY) 8 Apr. 4/4: The editor [...] pleaded ignorance as to the meaning of the phrase ‘to get a skate on’. | |
| Sarjint Larry an’ Frinds 59: Oi didn’t need to be afther tellin’ me men to get a skate on. | |
| Leavenworth Post (KS) 9 Feb. 1/6: No one took it into his head to get a skate on. |
(orig. milit.) to hurry up, to stop wasting time; often as imper.; thus imper. skates on.
| Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 14: get your skates on Hurry up [...] have your skates on To be prompt or early. | |
| ‘Arabella Weld’ Sandburrs 166: William donned his skates and lined out on one of his periodicals. | |
| diary 15 Sept. 🌐 Heyworth and I wakened up early in the morning and told to proceed up the line. Got our ‘skates on’. | |
| (con. WWI) Soldier and Sailor Words 260: Skates, To Put On: To Hurry up. | |
| ‘Me and a Spade’ (in Billy Bennett’s Fourth Souvenir Budget ) 31: I thought to myself, it ain’t long now, / Before Nobby puts on his skates. | |
| Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 5: Get one’s rollers or skates on: Run away. | |
| letter 7 Sept. in Leader (2000) 453: They’d better get their skates on if they want to get hold of me this trip. | |
| ‘Spare’ Cockade (1965) I ii: Right – skates on Freddie. | |
| Habeus Corpus Act II: Then I had to get my skates on for Evensong. | |
| ‘Willesden Suite’ Minder [TV script] 2: We ought to get our skates on. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Trainspotting 20: Sorry tae interrupt ye thair mate, but ah need tae be pittin ma skates oan. | |
| More Bible in Cockney 102: As soon as Paul had seen this vision, we got our bloomin’ skates on. |
1. to fail.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | ‘One of Us’ Best of Barry Crump (1974) 142: You’d have gone for a skate if they’d caught you out. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 103/1: go for a skate a fall, mistake, failure, blunder or dismissal. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
2. to be killed.
| (ref. to WWII) Dark Laughter 115: For most World War 2 soldiers the concept of death was masked by euphemisms like [...] gone for a skate. |
3. to be brought up in court.
| Maori Woman 99: I don’t want the cops here, yous guys’ll go for a skate, for sure. |
drinking heavily; thus phrs. get a skate on, to get drunk; have a skate on, to be drunk.
| Salina Dly Republican (KS) 25 Sept. 3/2: Skate — Mixed drinks enough to cause a man to stagger up and lock arms with a policeman. | |
| Dly Republican (Monogahela, PA) 23 Nov. 2/6: Many a man will humbly tell you that he cuts no ice; but he always harbors a different opinion when he gets a skate on. | |
| ‘Diamonds & Diamonds’ in Stallman (1966) 175: I’ve heard people say that they saw it on the finger of a ranchman from Montana just a little while before he came to Chicago on a skate. | |
| Hopkinsville Kentuckian (KY) 9 Mar. 3/3: A tipsy man [...] is declared to have a ‘skate’, or to ‘have his skates on’. | |
| Salt Lake City (UT) 30 Mar. 4/5: He has [...] a skate on [...] a brannigan on. | |
| New Castle News (PA) 30 Jan. 5/3: Most of our lawyers ride on the water wagon, but a few get a ‘skate on’ when they travel. | |
| Rocky Mt Telegram (NC) 30 June 6/7: Any player who gets a skate on gets slapped down. | |
| Candles Are All Out 114: They’re probably out on a skite [sic] while their firms think they are working somewhere. |