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Skim   /skɪm/   Listen
Skim

noun
1.
A thin layer covering the surface of a liquid.
2.
Reading or glancing through quickly.  Synonym: skimming.



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"Skim" Quotes from Famous Books



... which was so weak that when the whistle blew the engines stopped! When those frozen minutes have come to us, I've tried to remember the correct religious etiquette, but I've not had much practise since I stayed with Aunt Melissa, and lived on skim-milk and early piety. When things were looking as bad as they did for Dives, "Now I lay me down to sleep," and "For what we are about to receive," was all that I could think of. But the Saadat, he's a wonder from Wondertown. With a little stick, or maybe his flute ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... laid on the table—the coarse brown loaf, the pat of butter, the huge jug of skim milk, and the teapot full of weak tea. The children all came in hungry from school. Alison returned from her bedroom with red eyes. She cut the bread into thick slices, put a scrape of butter on each slice, and helped her brothers and sisters. The meal was a homely one, but perfectly nourishing. ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade

... that dogs, and sometimes children, have been killed by its bite; but it has not generally been fatal to men. These snakes are fond of cream, and will wind their way into the dairy, and skim the milk-pans, and sometimes visit hen-roosts, and ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... illness is languid, passive, receptive of sweetness, but too weak to contain it. The tears well and fall as the dog barks in the hollow, the children skim after hoops, the country darkens and brightens. Beyond a veil it seems. Ah, but draw the veil thicker lest I faint with sweetness, Fanny Elmer sighed, as she sat on a bench in Judges Walk looking ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... in Parker. She always talked so big that folks who didn't know her thought she must have millions of money; but when she came to giving, it was usu'ly skim milk or some of ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... felt before on my own quarter-deck. But this is a gun-deck now, aint it?" he added, stamping his foot upon it to see how solid it was. "If we only had aboard the howitzer that belongs here so that we could salute Plymouth as we skim by—You aint listening to me at all. What you looking ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... the first time in this roadstead, Tunis found his Aunt Lucretia much as usual. She watched him approach from the side porch, a warm smile of greeting on her rather gaunt face. He knew that she must have watched the Seamew skim by, making for the channel into the cove; for he had written her when to expect him. But she would say nothing about it unless he forced the gates of her silence by some direct question which demanded more than ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... Who killed him?" Racey allowed his eyes casually to skim the expressionless faces of the men ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... coast to the high longitudinal valleys, and there is no bed of a great river, no gulf allowing the sea to flow inland, spreading moisture by abundant evaporation. In the eighth and tenth degrees of latitude, in regions where the clouds do not, as it were, skim the surface of the soil, many trees are stripped of their leaves in the months of January and February; not by the sinking of the temperature as in Europe, but because the air at this period, the most distant from the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... own house was as delightful as she could have wished. The day was fine and bright; the first skim of snow had fallen on Christmas Eve and made the world beautiful; the harbor was ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... crackling ice, o'er gulfs profound, With nimble glide the skaiters play; O'er treacherous Pleasure's flowery ground Thus lightly skim, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... rivalries in love between Christian and Pagan champions; journeys through undiscovered lands and over untracked oceans; fantastic hyperboles of desire, ambition, jealousy, and rage, employed as motive passions. Enchanted forests; fairy ships that skim the waves without helm or pilot; lances endowed with supernatural virtues; charmed gardens of perpetual spring; dismal dungeons and glittering palaces, supply the furniture of this romance no less than of its predecessors. Rinaldo, like any other hero of the Renaissance, is agitated ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... cows gave nothing but cream, and that Thomasina skimmed butter off it as less lucky folk skim cream from milk. ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... I've seen her through. I thought the Skylark was a big thing before, but she's nothing but skim-milk compared with this yacht," replied he. "If I had such a yacht as this, I wouldn't go ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic

... of a kind more valuable, especially for growing children, than that of most other foods. Milk protein separates out when milk sours and is the familiar cottage-cheese. Because of it, milk, whole or skim, is a valuable meat substitute. When we drink milk, therefore, we ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker

... a 3-inch ladle and heat it over the fire and then dip it into the solder and skim off any dross that ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble

... of civilization with its city control of the hinterland, its products and inhabitants, enabled the city-centered oligarchy to accumulate and concentrate wealth and monopolize power, to skim the cream from the available milk, monopolize the cream, distribute the skimmed milk judiciously and thus perpetuate its ascendancy through generations and centuries. During periods of expansion civilized communities develop a dynamism which maintains their ascendancy. ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... idly singing, Lissome nut-brown maid Swings gaily, freely, to-and-fro; The curling, green-white waters casting cool, clear shade, Rock small, shell boats that go In circles wide, or tug at anchor's chain, As though to skim the sea with cargo vain, At Bay ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... moon went down a light breeze sprang from some blue depths of the far west, and began to skim the frail foamy clouds that drifted imperceptibly across the star-lit sky; and to the crystal fingers of the dew the numerous flowers in the garden below yielded a generous tribute of perfume that blended into ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... weather, but appear to follow the gale, and when it blows most heavily they are seen in greatest numbers. The colour is brown and white; the size about that of the swallow, whose motions oh the wing they resemble. They skim over the surface of the roughest sea, gliding up and down the undulations with astonishing swiftness. When they observe their prey, they descend flutteringly, and place the feet and the tips of the wings on the surface of the ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... are very common birds, and frequent, as a rule, the cultivated lands in the neighborhood of water, showing a decided preference for the habitations of man. "How gracefully the swallows fly! See them coursing over the daisy-bespangled grass fields; now they skim just over the blades of grass, and then with a rapid stroke of their long wings mount into the air and come hovering above your head, displaying their rich white and chestnut plumage to perfection. Now they chase each other for very joyfulness, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... itself—reading of the adventurous and poetical kind. There were two or three books which Marcella had absorbed in a way it now made her envious to remember. For at twenty-one people who take interest in many things, and are in a hurry to have opinions, must skim and "turn over" books rather than read them, must use indeed as best they may a scattered and distracted mind, and suffer occasional pangs of conscience as pretenders. But at thirteen—what concentration! what devotion! what joy! One of these precious volumes was Bulwer's "Rienzi"; another ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... if he had thought that I wanted it: he shall have a good large bowl of milk for supper. It was but last night he skimmed the cream off his milk for me, because he thought I liked it. Heigho!—God knows how long they may have milk to skim—as long as I can work they shall never want; but I'm not so strong as I used to be; but then I shall get strong, and all will be well, when my husband comes back (a drum beats at a distance). Hark! a drum!—some news from abroad, perhaps—nearer ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... would call to Rhoda, in her elegant fashion, "you are a bit of a German sausage, aren't you? Just read over that passage for me. I've been puzzling over it for the whole of the evening," and then would follow some blissful moments, when Rhoda would skim lightly over the difficulty, and feel the eyes of the girls fixed admiringly ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... canoemen were outfitted with surprising celerity. And at midnight a big freight canoe, loaded to the gunwale with an assortment of cheap knives and hatchets, bolts of gay-coloured cloth, and cheaper whiskey broke through the ever thickening skim of shore ice, and headed Northward under the personal direction of that master of all whiskey runners, ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... Montaigne. Rabelais was radical and extravagant, Montaigne conservative and discreet; Rabelais sought development of all the faculties alike, Montaigne gave preference to the training of the judgment; Rabelais would thoroughly master every branch of human knowledge, Montaigne was content to skim over the sciences. And yet, Montaigne must be recognized as an important factor in education, not only for his own teachings, but because undoubtedly Bacon, Locke, Rousseau, and other apostles of reform were greatly influenced by him. Bacon furthered Montaigne's theories ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley

... call him a liar!" Dr. Lavendar and William King stared at each other and at the old man, in shocked dismay. "His grandfather used words, maybe, onc't in a while," Simmons mumbled on, "but they didn't mean no mo'n skim-milk. Don't I know? He's damned me for forty years, but he'll go to heaven all the same. The Lawd wouldn't hold it up agin' him. if a pore nigger wouldn't. If He would, I'd as lief go to hell with Mr. Benjamin ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... along. Over and over again I thanked my stars that there were no curves to be taken, and I blessed the memory of that famous ruler wielded by the hand of Nicholas I. Here and there, at some slight rise in the ground, the engine literally did leave the rails and skim through the air for a few yards, alighting with a jar that brought my teeth together like ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... on the fire and let it boil slowly for 10 minutes, and skim well while boiling. Then remove vessel from fire and add 1/2 gill of Brandy to every pint of Shrub. Bottle and cork securely. This drink is served by simply pouring a little of the Syrup into Ice Water, as any drink from ...
— The Ideal Bartender • Tom Bullock

... add six quarts of cold water and place over the fire. Just before it boils, skim it carefully. Then add two cups of cold water and skim again, repeating this for a third skimming. Allow it to simmer slowly for three hours. Then add the vegetables; eight ounces each of cut up carrots, onions and turnips, and three ounces ...
— Joe Tilden's Recipes for Epicures • Joe Tilden

... the market and fair— We meet in the morning and night— He sits on the half of my chair, And my people are wild with delight; Yet I long through the winter to skim, Though Eoghan longs more I can see, When I will be married to him, And he will be married to me. Then, Oh! the marriage, the marriage, With love and mo bhuachaill for me, The ladies that ride in a carriage, Might envy ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... a travelling mud-turtle visits it. Sometimes, when I pushed off my boat in the morning, I disturbed a great mud-turtle which had secreted himself under the boat in the night. Ducks and geese frequent it in the spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows (Hirundo bicolor) skim over it, and the peetweets (Totanus macularius) "teeter" along its stony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting on a white pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... came to me. But the perfect steadiness of the balloon won our confidence, and we soon gave ourselves up to the gratification of our enviable position; and enviable indeed it was. For who has not envied the eagle his power to skim the tree-tops, to hover above Niagara, to circle mountain peaks, to poise himself aloft and survey creation, or to mount into the zenith ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... like to be at home, if it were best; but we canna have all we would like, you know. If you have milk to skim, you will need ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... is the greatest hotel city in the world in proportion to population. These pages necessarily skim only the surface of this aspect of the city's life. There are some 2,000 hotels, records of the Hospitality Bureau of the Chamber of Commerce show, each having rates scaled to meet the guests to whom it caters. Representatives of the Hospitality Bureau ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood

... Cradle (still standing in the hollow of the hill)? No doubt; but woman will go through worse storms than man's passion to get to the goal of wealth and honour. Then there is a frenzy in woman, Aminadab. She is like the boys, who seek danger for its own sake, and will skim on skates the rim of the black pool that descends from the film of ice down to the bubbling well of death below. Women have an ambition to tame wild men; ay, even wild men have a charm for them, which the tame sons of prudence and industry cannot inspire. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... devised a new form of periscope, designed to make the device invisible to the lookout of approaching boats. This device consists of two mirrors, put together like a "Y" lying on its side, the wide part in front. These skim through the waves and converge the image upon the low periscope's lens, which shoots the light down the tube to the receiving apparatus below. When looked at from a distance the mirrors reflect the surface of the sea, so that a lookout sees ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... with herbs and parsley; lay mutton on top of these, and pour enough boiling water to three parts cover it, and simmer slowly two hours; lift mutton into roasting tin with a few tablespoonfuls of the gravy; set in hot oven until brown; strain gravy and skim off fat, melt Crisco in saucepan, add flour, then add gravy gradually, seasoning of salt and pepper, mushrooms, and boil eight minutes. Set mutton on hot platter with mushrooms round, and gravy ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil

... he could feed upon at such a time. There was a light skim of snow upon the ground, and the weather was cold. The wren, so far as I know, is entirely an insect-feeder, and where can he find insects in midwinter in our climate? Probably by searching under bridges, under brush-heaps, in holes and ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... believe you?" she demanded. "You tell me you are in earnest. But you know as well as I do that that is a mere figure of speech. You are never in earnest. You play all day long. You will do it all your life. You never do anything worth mentioning. Other people do the work. You simply skim the surface of things. You are ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... water-skates[26] that skim Sea-king's fields, more good as he, Shedding wounds' red stream, must stand In my way ere I shall wince. I, the golden armlets' warder, Snakelike twined around my wrist, Ne'er shall shun a foeman's faulchion Flashing bright ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... the "Iris" sailors from another, and Charlie stood beside me. I am afraid his chief remembrance of the day is fixed upon Kanambat's tiny boat and outrigger, which he sat in on the beach, and went on voyages, in which the owner waded by his side, and saw him (Kanambat) skim along the waves like a white butterfly. We all dined in hall, after the boys, on roast beef and plum pudding, melons and water melons, and strolled about the place and beach at leisure, till it was time ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... either hand, with sunlight filtering between its deep bands of trees. At that hour the rays only illumined one side of the avenue, there gilding the lofty drapery of verdure; on the other, the shady side, the greenery seemed almost black. It was truly delightful to skim, swallow-like, over that royal avenue in the fresh atmosphere, amidst the waving of grass and foliage, whose powerful scent swept against one's face. Pierre and Marie scarcely touched the soil: it ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... faithful veracity with which I have compiled this invaluable little work; carefully winnowing away the chaff of hypothesis, and discarding the tares of fable, which are too apt to spring up and choke the seeds of truth and wholesome knowledge. Had I been anxious to captivate the superficial throng, who skim like swallows over the surface of literature; or had I been anxious to commend my writings to the pampered palates of literary epicures, I might have availed myself of the obscurity that overshadows the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... that another moment would plunge us into the abyss—down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge writhing wall between ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... various mountains and plains, where the stag and wild boar were to be met with most plentifully; and were they desirous of less fatiguing exercise, they only had to jump into some of our light canoes, and skim over the blue waters, shooting on their way at the hosts of aquatic birds flying around them in all directions,—they could even land on the various small islands situated between Jala-Jala and the isle of Talem. There they could find a sort of sport ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... The supply of skim milk running short in the last two periods, water was used instead in mixing the ration of the lots ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... mate in the nest on the high bright tree Blazing with dawn and dew, She knoweth the gleam of the world and the glee As I drop like a bolt from the blue; She knoweth the fire of the level flight As I skim, close, close to the ground, With the long grass lashing my breast and the bright Dew-drops flashing around. She watcheth the hawk, the hawk, the hawk, (O, the red-blotched eggs in the nest!) Watcheth ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... left, while the third kept near the middle of the stream. Then two would swerve toward shore, or perhaps it was all three, and again it was Jennie who kept the farthest from land, or perhaps a fancy led her to skim so close that some of the ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis

... the sky overhead, and the low mutterings of thunder came from the distance. It may have been the thunderings of nature, or of war—she did not heed them; her heart was filled with bitter, rebellious thoughts, and her flying feet seemed to skim over the road; nor did she check her hasty steps until she was about to enter her father's room. Mauer sat in his arm-chair, absorbed in thought. She threw herself down on her knees beside him, and flung her arms about his waist. Pressing her head against ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus

... note that discovery and research in its relation to the later empires that ruled at Babylon have produced results of literary rather than of historical importance. But we should exceed the space at our disposal if we attempted even to skim this fascinating field of study in which so much has recently been achieved. For it is time we turned once more to Egypt and directed our inquiry towards ascertaining what recent research has to tell us with regard to her inhabitants during the later periods ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... enough in their degree, were to the signboard, when the signboard at last came, as skim milk is to hot brandy. It was the signboard that, more startlingly than anything else, marked the dawn of a new era in St. Luke's Square. Four men spent a day and a half in fixing it; they had ladders, ropes, and pulleys, and two of them dined on the flat ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... milk they press and squeeze, And so they make it into cheese; The cream they skim and shake in churns, And then it soon to ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... or thereabouts, the calf will begin to eat a little sweet, fine hay, and potatoes cut fine, and it very soon becomes accustomed to this food. Many now begin to give linseed-meal mixed into hot water, to which is added some skim-milk or buttermilk; and others use a little bran cooked in hay-tea, made by chopping the hay fine and pouring on boiling-hot water, which is allowed to stand awhile on it. An egg is frequently broken into such a mixture. ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... without fixing myself on any one, in order that nothing should escape me, principally attending to the doors. I took advantage of the opportunity to say a word here and a word there, to pass continually near those who were suspected, to skim and interrupt all conversations. D'Antin was often joined by the Duc de Noailles, who had resumed his habit of the morning, and continually followed me with his eyes. He had an air of consternation, was agitated and embarrassed in countenance—he commonly ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... forest, all tangled and dark; Ye build and ye brood 'neath the cottagers' eaves, And ye sleep on the sod, 'mid the bonnie green leaves; Ye hide in the heather, ye lurk in the brake, Ye dine in the sweet flags that shadow the lake; Ye skim where the stream parts the orchard decked land, Ye dance where the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... fell out When they to spoil did fall; Rude Robin Goodfellow, the lout, Would skim the ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... to. I always try to profit by my superiors. She has courage: I have none. I beat about the bush, and talk skim-milk; she uses the very word. She said we have been the dupe and the tool of a little scheming rascal, an anonymous coward, with motives as base as his heart is black—oh! oh! Ay, that is the way to speak of such a man; I can't do it myself, but I reverence the brave lady who can. And she wasn't ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... hill the farm-boy goes, His shadow lengthens along the land, A giant staff in a giant hand; In the poplar-tree, above the spring, The katydid begins to sing; The early dews are falling;— Into the stone-heap darts the mink; The swallows skim the river's brink; And home to the woodland fly the crows, When over the hill the farm-boy goes, Cheerily calling,— "Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!" Farther, farther over the hill, Faintly calling, calling still,— "Co', ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... every hand; at its western extremity a graceful waterfall comes pouring down from the heights, mingling its silvery music with the songs of the birds around. It is the favorite haunt of gaily-colored kingfishers. Swallows skim hither and thither over its crystalline and placid surface; and, as if kissing their own reflections in the glass, they just touch the water as they flit across, creating circles that grow and grow until they reach the utmost edge. Like a giant who, conscious of his grandeur, loves ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham

... endeavor to please the angels,—not Julia's cast-iron angels, but the other angels, who understand and are patient, because they remember our frames and know that being dust we are likely to be dusty once in a while. Julia wasn't made of dust. She was made of—let me see—of skim milk and baked custard (the watery kind) and rice flour and gelatine, with a very little piece of overripe banana,—not enough to flavor, just enough to sicken. Stir this up with weak barley water without putting In a trace of ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... was not used as much as the river for skating; but this winter the ice was as smooth and solid as if it had been frozen artificially, so the High School boys and girls could not resist the temptation to skim over its surface. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... moving! Steam, or Gas, or Stage, Hold, cabin, steerage, hencoop's cage— Tour, Journey, Voyage, Lounge, Ride, Walk, Skim, Sketch, Excursion, Travel-talk— For move you must! 'Tis now the rage, 20 The law and fashion of the Age. If you but perch, where Dover tallies, So strangely with the coast of Calais, With a good glass and knowing look, You'll soon get matter for a book! 25 Or else, in Gas-car, take your chance ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... for some hours by the time I hit the street and waved for a skim-copter. Nick's games ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett

... we fish, and at eve we stand On long bare islands of yellow sand. And when the sun sinks slowly down, And the great rock-walls grow dark and brown, When the purple river rolls fast and dim, And the ivory Ibis starlike skim, Wing to ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... said, in one of the deep creeks between the islands of Parana, as the evening drew to a close, one of these scissor-beaks suddenly appeared. The water was quite still, and many little fish were rising. The bird continued for a long time to skim the surface, flying in its wild and irregular manner up and down the narrow canal, now dark with the growing night and the shadows of the overhanging trees. At Montevideo, I observed that some large flocks during the ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... They try to skim through by doing just as little work as possible. They cut the corners as closely as possible with their lessons, so that they can have time for play. They do that with the work in subtraction, and then, when they get into multiplication or division, ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley

... great towns forestalls the claims of the labouring hind. Tea and slops and beer take the place of milk, and the bone and sinew of the next generation are sapped from the cradle. But the country child, if he has nothing but skim milk, and only a little of that, has at least plenty of exercise in the fresh air. He has healthy human relations with his neighbours. He is looked after, and in some sort of fashion brought into ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... honor came, a virgin train, Like a bright constellation clustering round The central star, most glorious of them all. One, in a crimson blossom, torn away From its far moorings, nestled at her ease, Was seen slowly to skim the silver lake; While the huge flower seemed of itself propelled, Save that, by chance, a flushed and saucy face, Peeped from the waves, showing a little imp Who tugged at its stout stem with willful toil. KOLONA's limbs and bosom roseate ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown

... do very little, and when I left the convent she had to give me up. I was not of her monde; I am not now, either, but we sometimes meet. They are terrible people—her monde; all mounted upon stilts a mile high, and with pedigrees long in proportion. It is the skim of the milk of the old noblesse. Do you know what a Legitimist is, or an Ultramontane? Go into Madame de Cintre's drawing-room some afternoon, at five o'clock, and you will see the best preserved specimens. I say go, but no one is admitted who can't ...
— The American • Henry James

... But, my dear Stephen, it is only those who half know a thing that write about it. Those who know it thoroughly don't take the trouble. All I know about women, or men either, is a mass of generalities. I plod along, and occasionally lift my eyes and skim the weltering surface of mankind lying between me and the horizon, as a crow ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... parasites. The plants shoot up with marvellous rapidity, and glitter with flowers of the rarest hues and shapes, or bear quantities of luscious fruit, pleasant to the eye and sweet to the taste. The air resounds with the hum of insect-life; through the bright green leaves of the banana skim the sparkling humming-birds, and gorgeous butterflies of enormous size float, glowing with every colour of the rainbow, on the flower-scented breezes. But over all this beauty—over the luxuriance of ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... tempting fragrance of boiling sugar would make one's mouth water as he passed, and the same assistants, never weary in well-doing, might be seen setting saucers of black jam upon the window-sill to "jeel," and receiving, as a kind of blackmail, another saucerful of "skim," which, I am informed, is really the refuse of the sugar, but, for all that, wonderfully toothsome. Bear with a countryman's petty foolishness, ye mighty people who live in cities, and whose dainties ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... mope in corners or stalk up and down leafless and almost solitary walks during this hanging and drowning season. Nevertheless, all men are more or less misanthropes, or they affect to be so; for only skim off the bile of a true critic, or the minds of the hundred thousand who read newspapers, and look first for the bankrupts and deaths. Sugar and wormwood and wormwood and sugar are the standing dishes, but as we read the other day, "there is a certain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various

... short and weak that flight in the air is denied it. Still it uses them effectually in flapping, which, aided by the beating of its broad webbed feet, upon stout legs set far back on the body, enables it to skim over the surface of the water at the rate of fifteen miles an hour! In its progress, says Darwin, "it makes such a noise and splashing that the effect is exceedingly curious." The great naturalist further states that he is "nearly sure the steamer-duck ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... thus filled, being blown out, and so the udder is let down. When they had drawn the milk they pour it into wooden vessels hollowed out, and they set the blind slaves in order about 6 the vessels and agitate the milk. Then that which comes to the top they skim off, considering it the more valuable part, whereas they esteem that which settles down to be less good than the other. For this reason 7 the Scythians put out the eyes of all whom they catch; for they are not tillers of the ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... southward, but would soon, when the mountains were well behind him, turn toward the east. He carried a small wallet, filled chiefly with oatcake and hard skim-milk cheese: about two o'clock he sat down on a stone, and proceeded to make a meal. A brook from the hills ran near: for that he had chosen the spot, his fare being dry. He seldom took any other drink than water: he had learned that strong drink at best but discounted ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... ever passed in my life now went along. The tiger roamed the deck silently, smelling at everything, once shoving its huge head into the companion-way, and I prayed with all my heart it would go below, that I might skim to the hatch and secure it. It drew its head out, and going to the boy stopped and smelt him. The very blood in me was curdled, for I made sure the beast was about to eat the lad. Sometimes I broke out into the noisiest roarings and screaming my pipes could set up in the hope of driving ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... go there, I assure you, on my own hook, to see if I could find out something. Toto nearly died of it, didn't you, darling? Not a drop of cream to be had for him, the poor angel; only a little nasty skim milk. But Mr. Tatham has the barbarity to smile," she went on, with a shrill outcry. "Fancy, Toto—the ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... same. What would the old man do without it? And to you who are young I would say—you may re-read, you first must read. Choose worthy books to love. As for those who know no book long enough either to love or despise it—who skim through good and bad alike and forget page ninety-nine while reading page 100, we may simply say to them, in the words of the witty Frenchman, "What a sad old age you are ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... scattering pine-trees. We camped at noon near the house of a settler who seemed to have a dog farm, as the place was overrun with the animals. We needed some corn for the horses, and asked him if he had any to sell. He was a queer looking man, with hair the color of molasses candy, and skim-milk eyes. ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth

... rising broad, and round, and bright; And here on snows, where never human foot[139] Of common mortal trod, we nightly tread, And leave no traces: o'er the savage sea, The glassy ocean of the mountain ice, We skim its rugged breakers, which put on The aspect of a tumbling tempest's foam, Frozen in a moment[140]—a dead Whirlpool's image: And this most steep fantastic pinnacle, The fretwork of some earthquake—where the clouds ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... mountains tower above its shore, (p. 308) Green rushes fringe its brim, And o'er its breast for evermore The wanton breezes skim. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... salts; which mode, by cleansing the meat from the blood, tends to keep it from tasting strong; it should be turned daily, and, if wanted soon, rubbed. A salting tub may be used, and a cover should fit close. Those who use a good deal of salt will find it well to boil up the pickle, skim, and when cold pour it over meat that has been sprinkled and drained. In some families great loss is sustained by the spoiling of meat. If meat is brought from a distance in warm weather, the butcher should be charged to cover it close, and bring ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss

... body wasted. They bought a cow for his sole use and benefit, and guarded it like a sacred animal but to no purpose. He drank of its milk and grew thinner than ever. Strange furrows began to appear on his tiny face, with shadows and a transparent tinge like the blue of skim-milk. As the pure air of Drayton did so little for him, Mrs. Nevill Tyson wondered how he would bear ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... young are raised artificially or by hand, and fed milk from different mothers of the same or different species, or changed from whole to skim milk, acute and chronic digestive disorders that are accompanied by a diarrhoea are common. Feeding calves from filthy pails, allowing them to drink too rapidly and giving them fermented milk are ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... gladly did, and we're more than glad we did it for you, sir. But as for doing it again, we can't do it, for it ain't in us. Even if we tried to do the best we could for you, all you'd get would be something like skim-milk—good enough for cottage cheese and bonnyclabber, but nothing like good fresh milk with the ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... and her twin brother began to hoist the mainsail of the Ice Bird. It ran up easily, and caught by the wind the craft began to skim over the surface of the lake like ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope

... gamble—for once—since fortune is likely to favor the beginner. But it doesn't pay to flout the devil, in the long run. For a man like the Rector, fishing was the only certain trade, but in his own boat, with nothing lost to outfitters, who sit quietly at home and skim the cream ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... even a slight change in the form of "letters," or strokes, will make easy reading of Chinese impossible. It is a mistake to suppose that the Chinese have to "spell their way" laboriously through the written character so familiar to them: it is just as easy to "skim over" a Chinese newspaper in a few minutes as it is to "take in" the leading features of the Times in the same limited time; and volumes of Chinese history or literature in general can be "gutted" quite easily, owing to the facility with which the so-called pictographs, once familiar, lend themselves ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... wind goes droning o'er the sun-bright seas, And the Minch is all a-dazzle to the Hebrides; They will skim along like salmon—you can see their shoulders gleam, And the flashing of their fingers in ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie

... a hen which now tries to cross the country road never gets more than half way. We who live in town have to keep a sharp lookout or we are apt to share the fate of many a valuable Buff Cochin or Plymouth Rock. Trains speed along their glistening rails faster than ever before. Great ships skim across the ocean in days instead of weeks. The aeroplane, which needs neither steel rails nor water to glide upon, darts through space still more rapidly. Everybody seems to be in a hurry, whether he is or not. We are impatient if the ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold

... easiest thing of all," replied the young aviator; "you've watched a wild duck get up many a time, haven't you, Mr. Quackenboss; well, we do just the same, only instead of flapping our wings, we start the engine, and skim along the surface for a little distance, then elevate the planes, and immediately begin to soar upward. And it does the stunt as gracefully as anything you ever saw. Some time I hope to give you a chance to see how it works. When we leave here, ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy

... wild deer of the forest At the river stoop to drink, But from the rush of waters All panic-stricken shrink; And the mountain eagles sailing O'er the cataract's foaming brim Alarmed, on soaring pinions, Away, o'er Heaven's clouds skim. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... coursers that strain, on the track, neck and neck, on the home-stretch, With nostrils distended, and mane froth-flecked, and the neck and the shoulders, Each urged to his best by the cry and the whip and the rein of his rider, Now they skim o'er the waters and fly, side by side, neck and neck, through the meadows. The blue heron flaps from the reeds, and away wings her course up the river; Straight and swift is her flight o'er the meads, but ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... stewpans, are almost always inaccessible; to know how to look at them with laboriously-acquired indifference and to practise to take no notice of them, saying to yourself that here are objects which are probably sacred, since merely to skim them with the tip of a respectful tongue is enough to let loose the unanimous anger of all the ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck

... another cully; that he would not be fooled so by ever a country mock modesty in England; that he supposed I had left my maidenhead with some hobnail in the country, and was come to dispose of my skim-milk in town" with a volley of the like abuse; which I listened to with more pleasure than ever fond woman did to protestations of love from her darling minion: for, incapable as I was of receiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... unexpectedly, I tell you, in a bit of marshy meadow just at the outlet of the pond. Garry was paddling me along at the top of his pace, after a wing-tipped wood-duck, when up jumped one of the long-billed rascals, and had the impudence to skim across the creek under my very nose—'skeap! skeap!' Well, I dropped him, you may be sure, with a charge, too, of duck shot; and he fell some ten yards over on the meadow; so leaving Garry to pursue the drake, I landed, loaded my gun with No. 9, and went to ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... oil-maker may be got in to prepare the oil. When ghee, or clarified butter, is required, never buy that article in the bazaar, but buy the best native butter and have it made into ghee. Boil the butter, and add to it a small quantity of sugar and salt, and skim off floatage. If to the clarified butter some fresh milk is added, it may be used for the table instead of butter, but it is better, I find ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... Minneapolis, though as a rival to the waltz and two-step the new dance was ridiculed by every one. He mastered all the savoir faire of the boarding-house. But he was always hurrying away from it to practise football, to prowl about the Plato power-house, to skim through magazines in the Y. M. C. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... Your face tells me enough. Now you've sucked me dry, eaten me hollow, killed my ego, my personality. To that I answer: how, my beloved? Have I killed your ego, when I wanted to give you the whole of mine; when I let you skim the cream off my bowl, that I'd filled with all the experience of along life, with incursions into the deserts and groves of ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... on the 14th of July, one for which we paid $7 50. For the first month it had nothing but the wash from the house, the skim-milk from the dairy, and greens from the garden. When we began to dig the potatoes, we found we could not hope to save the whole crop from the disease; we had, therefore, a quantity boiled and put in the pig-tub, and upon these it was fed another ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton



Words linked to "Skim" :   take, remove, nonfat, fatless, touch, cover, skip, covering, glide, read, cream, reading, see, examine, take away, throw, withdraw, aquaplane, natural covering, fat-free, coat, surface



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