SKIMMING

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does skimming mean? 

• SKIMMING (noun)
  The noun SKIMMING has 4 senses:

1. the act of removing floating material from the surface of a liquid

2. reading or glancing through quickly

3. failure to declare income in order to avoid paying taxes on it

4. the act of brushing against while passing

  Familiarity information: SKIMMING used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SKIMMING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of removing floating material from the surface of a liquid

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("skimming" is a kind of...):

remotion; removal (the act of removing)

Derivation:

skim (remove from the surface)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Reading or glancing through quickly

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

skim; skimming

Hypernyms ("skimming" is a kind of...):

reading (the cognitive process of understanding a written linguistic message)

Derivation:

skim (read superficially)

skim (examine hastily)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Failure to declare income in order to avoid paying taxes on it

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("skimming" is a kind of...):

larceny; stealing; theft; thievery; thieving (the act of taking something from someone unlawfully)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The act of brushing against while passing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

grazing; shaving; skimming

Hypernyms ("skimming" is a kind of...):

touch; touching (the act of putting two things together with no space between them)

 Context examples 

Silver, though he was almost killed already with fatigue, was set to an oar, like the rest of us, and we were soon skimming swiftly over a smooth sea.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He read the letter, skimming it line by line, dashing through the editor's praise of his story to the meat of the letter, the statement why the check had not been sent.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Each of these weeklong orbits — 20 in all — carries the spacecraft high above Saturn's northern hemisphere before sending it skimming past the outer edges of the planet's main rings.

(Over Saturn's Turbulent North, NASA)

OUT of the whole of that vast multitude I was one of the very few who had observed whence it was that this black hat, skimming so opportunely over the ropes, had come.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds fell fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and upheaving of all nature.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As he spoke he raised his arbalest to his shoulder and was about to pull the trigger, when a large gray stork flapped heavily into view skimming over the brow of the hill, and then soaring up into the air to pass the valley.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was not a hundred yards from her when the wind came again in a clap; she filled on the port tack and was off again, stooping and skimming like a swallow.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He ran in little zigzags from one knot of people to another, whilst his peculiar appearance drew a running fire of witticisms as he went, so that he reminded me irresistibly of a snipe skimming along through a line of guns.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Whipping the other from his belt, he sent it skimming some few feet from the earth with so true an aim that it struck and transfixed the stork for the second time ere it could reach the ground.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My incredulity was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)