Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. milit.) vi. and vtr., to neglect one’s duties or work; thus skiving.

1919		Athenaeum 1 Aug. 695/1: ‘To skive,’ to dodge a fatigue .
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 260: Skive, To: To dodge a duty or fatigue.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 45: Inveterate grousers, individuals who would sometimes skive if they got their opportunity.
1959		W. Hall Long and the Short and the Tall Act I: He’s lighting up a fag. Well, the crafty old Nip. The skiving get.
1961		H. Livings Stop it, Whoever You Are (1962) Act II: You’d think there’d be somewhere in a works this size where you could skive off for a read of the racing.
1962		H. Livings Nil Carborundum (1963) Act II: I don’t give a tuppenny fart for your soldiering [...] your skiving and your bull.
1971		T. Lewis Plender [ebook] [T]he same place I’d skived off everything that had been shoved at me for the previous five years.
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 61: Skiving work through riotous folly.
1982		P. Redmond Tucker and Co 80: As soon as we have to do it in games we start to skive off.
1998		(con. 1940s) P. Cumper One Bright Child 117: I skived off under this bridge during many a school cross-country run.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 111: Ray Lennox is out [...] so there’s nobody I can skive off with.
2001		A. Sillitoe Birthday 173: They [...] skived when they could get away with it.
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 255: Skiving off a lesson’s a serious enough offence to be sent to Mr Nixon.
2012		J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) 112: ‘Where were you?’ ‘Skiving’.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] ‘He was supposed to have been skiving around this area’.
2020		G. Disher Consolation 316: ‘If we assume Katie’s not just skiving off, meeting friends, this could be payback for something you’ve been working on’.