Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. boasting, bragging.

1860		C.R. Thatcher Victoria Songster 160: You don’t often see a chap given to the ’skite, Can do very much when it comes to a fight [OED].
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Jan. 13/4: Amongst the everyday pieces of ‘skite,’ and the eternal bolstering up of bad goods which seem to be the principle duties of the gifted geniuses who rule the Nooze, the following little chunk of reflection comes as refreshingly cool during the present hot weather as the leeward side of an Arctic iceberg.
1896		E. Dyson ‘Battered Bob’ Rhymes from Mines 153: We were victims of a duffer’s awful skite.
1905		H Lawson ‘Joseph’s Dreams & Reuben’s Brethren’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 99: They spake not of his dreams and cheek, / His laziness, or ‘skite’.
1910		‘G.B. Lancaster’ Jim of the Ranges 5: He’s an easy-going beggar, but he has [...] a great derry on skyte.
1915		C.J. Dennis ‘The Stoush O’ Day’ Songs of a Sentimental Bloke 27: Trained to the minute, confident in skill, / ’E swaggers in the east, chock-full o’ skite.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘Narcissus’ Rose of Spadgers 153: I ’ad been full uv skite. / I was the ’ero uv the piece all right.
1932		‘William Hatfield’ Ginger Murdoch 221: That may be skite, but it’s right.
1938		Townsville Daily Bull. 20 Jan. 2/5: There’s no ‘skite’ about you.
1959		G. Slatter Gun in My Hand 218: Do a bit of a skite, I suppose. Impress the boys at the Reunion.
1963		M. Anderson River Rules My Life 124: Remember all the skite and blow he went on with about buckjumping shows in Aussie?
1986		G.A. Wilkes Exploring Aus. Eng. 15: Other Australianisms derived from English dialect include damper, [...] skite, skerrick, wowser and stoush.

2. a braggart, a boaster.

1902		E. Dyson ‘Bashful Gleeson‘ in Bulletin Reciter n.p.: Charley Mack and Hogan and the Teddywaddy Skite / Put in many pleasant evenings at ‘The Bower’.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Sept. 16/1: And I wished my mate had never told the tale! / For they called poor Bill a liar, and a ‘take-down,’ and a ‘skite,’ / And they swore they’d knock his head off without fail!
1906		Gadfly (Adelaide) 28 Feb. 13/1: We may reckon Reid’s a rotter, or Carruthers is a skite, / An’ the Legislative Council mostly goat; / But we’re so dam busy tellin’ one another of our plight, / We forget to go across the road an’ vote.
1915		Honk! 18 Jan. 10/2: One thing I am sure of, that we shall deserve the compliment [...] ‘Well done, Australia!’. Anyhow it’s up to us to deserve it, each and everyone; no ‘skites’.
1924		Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 30 Oct. 12/5: You are a skite.
1933		N. Lindsay Saturdee 181: Taunts began to hurtle [...] ‘Who’s a stinkin’ skite?’.
1940		J. MacLaren-Ross ‘A Bit of a Smash in Madras’ Memoirs of the Forties (1984) 277: I knew Menon slightly: he was a slimy skite and I wouldn’t trust him an inch.
1942		Dly News (NY) 30 May 10/3: In Australia [...] a boastful person is a skite.
1944		Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW) 10 Feb. 2/3: Because some girls had called him a ’skite’ [...] to prove his boast that he was a professional swimmer [he] yesterday attempted to swim three miles.
1965		L. Haylen Big Red 13: Don’t worry about that big skite. He couldn’t do anything.
1972		J. O’Grady It’s Your Shout, Mate! 59: Mob o’ skites, those crow-eaters.
1985		B. Robinson Aussie Bull 11: Beware of the skite who tells you that he and his girl ‘had oral sex last night.’ That probably means that they just talked about it.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 103/2: skite boaster; abbreviation of ‘blatherskite’, Northern and Scottish dialect ‘skyte’.
1996		B. Scott Banshee and Bullocky 40: More like big skites. Reckon they’ve been everywhere and seen the lot.

3. nonsense.

1900		Truth (Sydney) 16 Dec. 8/3: Them parsons sez we're born in Sin. / Witch I considers skite.
1911		Truth (Sydney) 29 Jan. 5/3: Listenin’ to his pious skite. / Gettin’ ‘private consolation’ / In the parlor, sitting round.
1929		(con. WWI) R. Graves Goodbye to All That (1960) 121: Copy out all this skite on the back of your maps.

4. (Irish) a silly, frivolous person.

1910

P.W. Joyce Eng. As We Speak It In Ireland.

5. a complaint.

1914

Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Aug. Red Page/1: The ’Urdles now, en’ Steeple’s all the go / Ter give the blokes a charnce ter do their dough, / Then fetch a skite their forchin jist got pipped! / It ain’t too dusty livenin’ aroun’ / These early morns wif Jack Frost on the groun’, / Uz if the moonlight froze w’ere it wuz tipped.