Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a shaven head or one who has one.

1943		N. Pepper in Indianapolis Star 12 Dec. pt 4 22/6: Skinhead — Boy with a G.I. haircut.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 126: His skinhead and Baldie jacket were more obvious than an American flag.
1993		K. Scott Monster (1994) 253: That summer we all got skinheads. We’d pile into my car [...] bald-headed with dark shades on.
1999		Guardian Rev. 11 June 15: I fookin’ hate having hair. I prefer a skinhead.
2020		G. Armstrong Young Team 7: Always hus a skinhead n a wee devious look aboot him.

2. (orig. US) a bald person; thus as a nickname.

1951		P. Whelton Angels are Painted Fair 77: A man in overalls [...] sat at the desk writing in a sort of ledger. He was a skinhead, thin and cadaverous.
1958		(con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 68: Skinhead couldn’t see any enemy activity from his whirlybird.
1965		H. Rhodes Chosen Few (1966) 36: Sergeant Major Jackson to you, skinhead. [Ibid.] 73: Couldn’t be th’ skinheads are gettin’ hip to you, could it?
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxiv 4/4: egg shell blonde: Bald headed person, sometmes [sic] skinhead.
1984		Flame: a Life on the Game 133: I went to bed with a dead butch Scottish bloke called Stewart, a rough, hard skinhead.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 127: What we got here’s one brain-dead skinhead.
2012		J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) 193: A young guy is serving, he’s cute. Skinhead. Looks like a monk.

3. attrib. use of sense 2.

1973		B.S. Johnson All Bull 240: In the long open carriage was a group of very young [...] ‘skinhead’ soldiers.
1984		A. Sayle Train to Hell 124: Approaching him down the corridor was a stocky figure [...] with an evil face, topped by a skinhead crop.

4. a member of a teen youth cult whose main identifying features are bald heads, large ‘bother’ boots, turned-up jeans and braces and who provide much of the ‘heavy’ element of the modern neo-Nazi movements; also attrib.

1969		Daily Mirror 3 Sept. 12/1: A group of teenagers [...] wear tight and rather short jeans, collarless T-shirts, exposed braces, big steel-capped boots and hair erased almost to their scalps. The lack of hair is what gives them their generic names [...] crop-heads, skin-heads or peanuts.
1970		Time 8 June 37: The skinheads are lineal descendants of the rockers—with an added touch of mindless savagery.
1973		B.S. Johnson All Bull 241: What is a ‘skinhead’ but the most alienated and rancorous product of our current state of industrial opportunism compounded by induced unemployment?
1981		T. Wilkinson Down and Out 85: One of the skinheads jumped up in his seat, causing his braces to fly in the air.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 120: A local skinhead gang went into a slam-dancing frenzy.
1998		P. McCabe Breakfast on Pluto 72: The night with its Clockwork Orange gangs and skinheads and hippy dealers falling in and out of Ward’s pub.
2002		A. Duff Jake’s Long Shadow 147: ‘They were head-kicker shits.’ ‘What you mean skinheads who hate niggers?’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 190: skins [...] 2. Shaven-headed neo-Nazis, short for skinheads.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 169: It’s a pretty wacky gathering when a skinhead with a swastika tattoo on his head is one of the more presentable attendees.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 49: That dark, near skinheid cut oan that low forehead.