Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to leave; to run off.

1834

‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 157: [...] smabblin several and inakin the rest skim it, quick time.

2. of an employee, to hold back a proportion of the profits from their job (usu. in some form of gambling), thus stealing from their employer.

1916		J. Lait ‘It Wasn’t Honest, But It Was Sweet’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 224: Mrs. Sickles skimmed a little off the stingy domestic allowance and doled it to beggars.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 201: Madams skimmed fifty percent off each of his girls’ earnings.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 17: He still has things he can skim.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 272: Skimming the take would’ve been suicide and they handed over scrupulously audited thousands to Marty every night.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 120: The house takes a 50 per cent cut. The cashier eavesdrops on the bargaining to prevent the girls from skimming.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 13: A few guys were caught skimming had to fork over extra the next week.
2012		A. Nette ‘Chasing Atlantis’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] I’ve been skimming from Cornelius’ operation for nearly six months [...] Tonight was going to be my final score.
2019		S.M. Jones Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘But let’s say he starts skimming payments and women to feed his own habits’.
2020		A. Parks Bobby March Will Live Forever 230: ‘Alec was skimming him. He was selling the pills for more than he was meant to, keeping the extra money back for himself’.
2024		C. Stella Joey Piss Pot 81: [H]e was told to rough up a dirty carpenter union shop steward for skimming from payouts by his rank and file.

3. to conceal some part of one’s earnings in order to avoid paying tax on them; thus skimming n.

1970		Time 21 Dec. 63: There was evidence of skimming [....] out of the casinos in order to dodge taxes.
1977		(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 365: He plowed through the kickbacks and the money Jack had skimmed off the top.

4. to steal from a store of money, drugs etc.

1977		Butler & Shryack Gauntlet 85: What about all those times when you bust a skag-pusher, skim the haul when you’ve made the collar, then sell what you skim to your dope-addict buddies on the force?
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 142: Members of the NYPD had been skimming profits from narcotics investigations, or stealing heroin from evidence vaults and reselling it.
1998		(con. 1986) G. Pelecanos Sweet Forever 34: The second of the mayor’s three wives [...] had skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars out of [...] the agency responsible for much of the city’s subsidized housing.
2000		F. Kellerman Stalker (2001) 487: Just skim a couple of ounces from the supply room.
2007		D. McDonald Luck in the Greater West (2008) 5: Whitey skimmed off the top, but never ripped anyone off.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] His hands had been cut off for skimming some smack off the top of a shipment.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 85: I can’t skim my poor grandma out a hundred dollars prolly apposed to pay for her heart medicine or whatever.
2023		A. Nette Orphan Road 206: ‘[T]hings were getting hot for me in Philly. I was skimming from the Mob’s heroin operations’.

5. to forge a credit card; thus skimming n.

1980		Amer. Banker 17 Sept. 10/1: Information on how to produce fraudulent credit cards or skim data from magnetic tape on cards was being circulated freely in prisons [OED].
2000		Observer 23 Jan. 9: A counterfeiting technique known as ‘skimming’ is more popular than ever. A genuine card is swiped through a card-reader, its data copied and used to make new magnetic strips for fake cards.

6. (US) to kidnap.

2019

S.M. Jones Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘Some off-book ICE units scoopin’ and skimmin’ Hispanic and Middle Eastern girls, moving ’em through a new private network’.

7. see skin v.¹ (3)