Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK prison/workhouse) gruel, broth (the army’s ‘thick stew’ of cite 1918 is anomalous).

c.1834		‘Poor Law Catechism’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 89: Thou shalt not make to thyself any substitute for skilley, nor likeness of tea.
1835		Worcester Herald 26 Dec. 4/3: Skilly, gruel.
1841		‘Mill! The Mill!’ Dublin Comic Songster 104: I am where I have had my fill [...] And a basin of skilley when off I go.
c.1850		‘New Beer House Act’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 92: He must [...] live upon skilly for one month.
1862		Morn. Post 18 Dec. 3/3: In the hulks a cove was laid [...] And skilly you was made to eat — oh! warn’t it glum!
1866		J. Greenwood Night in a Workhouse 8: Ah! that’s a pity now, because you’ve missed your skilley (gruel).
1866		Western Dly Press 9 Mar. 3: Robert Lowe [...] threw his ‘skillery’ into the face of the master [of the workhouse].
1869		J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 129: A casual pauper, half starved on a pint of skilly.
1869		Australasian (Melbourne) 17 July 8/5: The broth given on board the hulks is called skilligolee, skilly, and smiggins.
1871		C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. 51: He [...] ‘did stunning, until he was afraid of being stunned on skilly’.
1882		Cremorne I 28: Such a dose of slaver as made me think I was in Maidstone Jug again, swallowing a dose of skilly with too much salt in it.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Mar. 7/4: Here was the deserters’ chance. From every station and rabbit-murdering party in the land came telegrams saying that if the courtmartial and skilly were waived, they’d wade to the armpits in Arab gore.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 18 Mar. 4/8: The jug there [i.e. Adelaide] is worse than any — the skilly is bad and the ‘screws’ (warders) are terrible dogs.
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 49: I [...] should have [...] demanded that he should thereafter eat skilly and pick oakum.
1900		E.W. Rogers [perf. Marie Lloyd] The Red and The White and The Blue 🎵 Now there’s beef and beer and skilly in the Army served around.
1901		E.W. Hornung Black Mask (1992) 151: And I who had bolted my skilly at Wormwood scrubs.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Sept. 1/1: He is rapidly qualifying for a return to stone-breaking and skilly.
1910		Truth (Perth) 5 June 12/1: They would feed us all on skilley, / With tract soup thrown in as well.
1911		J. Masefield Everlasting Mercy 5: As sure as skilly’s made in prison / The right to poach that copse is his’n’.
1918		L.N. Smith Lingo of No Man’s Land 76: SKILLY A thick soup of meat and vegetables served out in army rations.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 147: Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly.
1926		N. Lucas London and its Criminals 182: He would then be ordered extra bread or ‘skilly,’ a great boon to prisoners none too well fed.
1933		‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 141: Skilly? A can o’ hot water wid some bloody oatmeal at de bottom; dat’s skilly.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 89: Officers’ wives eat pudden and pies / But soldiers’ eat skilly.
1958		F. Norman Bang To Rights 20: A prisoner came round with a can of skilly.
1968		A. Burgess Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 300: Slops out. Here’s your skilly, you horrible murderer, you. Snout-barons.
1978		A. Burgess 1985 (1980) 133: The Salvation Army gave him, on conition that he first prayed over it, a bowl of skilly.
1990		A. Burgess You’ve Had Your Time 40: She [...] applied it to the breakfast rice skilly and the fatty salami.

2. in fig. use of sense 1.

1873		Sportsman (London) ‘Notes on News’ 2 Aug. 4/1: [The Shah] was surfeited with dainties m most of the countries of Europe, but in Italy was regaled on the thinnest of ‘skilly’ .
1903		Hull Dly Mail 11 Feb. 2/5: Really, the people [...] are less sensible than we give them credit for if they continue to absorb contendedly such political ‘skilly’.

3. any weak beverage, e.g. tea or coffee.

1920		N.Y. Trib. 24 Jan. 6/2: A thin muddy cocoa or a kind of skilly.
1927		E. Wallace Feathered Serpent 220: I admit it sounds as likely as cream in skilly; but it’s true.
1929		Morn. Call (Allentown, PA) 16 June 6/2: Hard tack and skilly for supper. The latter, though supposed to be tea, bore sligt remeblance to tea.
1935		J. Masefield Victorious Troy 37: In addition to this, there was a big old battered tin coffee pot containing skilly, or a brown, hot liquid, which the crew called ‘tea’ at night, and ‘coffee’ in the morning .
1953		J. Masefield Conway (2nd edn) III 250: A cup of skilly completed the repast. Dinner consisted of soup (usually very good).

4. (US prison) gravy.

1927		H. Yenne ‘Prison Lingo’ in AS II:6 281: Skilley—Gravy.
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 580: In virtually all American prisons stew is slum, bread is punk or dummy, gravy is skilley.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 196/1: Skilly. (P) Gravy; stew.