Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a conceited fop or dandy.

1568		U. Fulwell Like Will to Like 7: For a very skipjack is prouder, I swear by the mass.
1576		U. Fulwell Art of Flattery 6th dialogue 30: A sort of skipjacks are now crept into the places of auncient and graue fathers.
1590		Sidney Arcadia III (1926) 178: Now, the Devill (sayde shee) take these villeynes that can never leave gryning, because I am not so fayre as Mistris Mopsa to see how the Skipp Jack lookes at mee.
1594		Greene James IV I i: What tell me, thou skipjack, what art thou?
1608		R. Middleton Epigrams 15: Skipiacke Salternus in his mysterie / Is verie proud through people’s flatterie.
1616		R.C. Times’ Whistle Sat. V 2219: And skip-iacke now will have his pipe of smoke, And whiff it bravely till hee’s like to choke.
c.1629		R. Brome City Wit IV i: What, relieve the base wants of prating Skipjacks to pay for your damnation?
1637		T. Nabbes Microcosmus Act IV: Blood’s a skip-jack, and I will make him caper.
1663		J. Wilson Cheats I iii: I am for none of your skip-jacks.
1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 194: But till thou hadst this Skip-Jack got, / With Vulcan thou didst find no Fault.
1699		N. Ward London Spy IX 208: A long dark Entry full of Rapscalionly Skip-Jacks.
1707		Cibber Double Gallant I i: I am none of your Skip-jacks, no Spendthrift Courtier.
1806		T.S. Surr Winter in London III 230: How few of our fashionable skip-jacks who pride themselves on their courage [...] possess a spark of that spirit.
1838		T. Haliburton Clockmaker II 150: A little skip-jack of a French judge, that was chock full of grins and grimaces.
1850		S. Judd Richard Edney and the Governor’s Family 218: Who are they but mangy skipjacks, half-baked upper-crusts?
1869		Lake’s Falmouth Packet 19 June 4/4: A brace of Indians [...] with noble bronze faces, which contrast rather strongly with the countenance of the simpering skipjack who has preceded them .
1878		R.T. Cooke Happy Dodd Ch. xvii: I’sd as lieves take care o’ two on ’em as that skip-jack of a girl of his’n.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 62: With that skip-jack Dave Dyer, the druggist, she conducted a long mock quarrel.
1922		‘Phinneas A. Crutch’ Queen of Sheba 102: Solomon a painted skipjack, Hiram a blustering gadabout.

2. a jockey.

1674

T. Staveley Romish Horseleech 214: If Friers should wear short Habits, they would look more like Jockeys and Millers, than Friars [...] And then, said they, [...] when we go to say Mass, will it not be a rare sight for us to go like Skipjacks and Millers?

3. (UK Und.) a horse-trader’s boy, who puts the horses through their paces.

1608		Dekker Lanthorne and Candle-Light Ch. 10: The boyes, striplings, &c., that haue the Riding of the Iades up and downe are called Skip-iacks.
1617		J. Taylor ‘Iacke a Lent’ in Works (1869) I 113: Of Jack-an-Apes I list not to endite, / Nor of jack Daw my gooses quill shall write; / Of Jack of Newbery I will not repeate, / Nor Jacke of both sides, nor of Skip-Jacke neate.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Skip-jacks youngsters that Ride the Horses for Sale.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1801		‘Modern Dict.’ in Sporting Mag. May XVIII.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.