Skimp

adj, noun, verb, slang

adj, noun, verb, slang ·1 syllable ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A skimpy or insubstantial thing, especially a piece of clothing.

    "I remembered how fierce it hurt and how it blistered. All that pain from just a skimp of flesh."

  2. 2
    Underwear. colloquial, in-plural

    "While presenting a rundown of the sexiest soap stars in the world in this week's ZOO, Hollyoaks' Gemma Atkinson very kindly stripped down to her skimps herself."

Verb
  1. 1
    To mock, deride, scorn, scold, make fun of. Northern-England, Scotland

    "I thought Adie was only skimpin' me."

  2. 2
    To slight; to do carelessly; to scamp. transitive

    "I got out my wallet and let him have a look at my licenses, detective and driver's. He didn't skimp it, being a lawyer."

  3. 3
    supply sparingly and with restricted quantities wordnet
  4. 4
    To make insufficient allowance for; to scant; to scrimp.

    "The temptation to skimp examinations and maintenance procedures, to save time or overcome staff shortages, must be resisted, and supervisors must insist on strict adherence to maintenance schedules and quality of workmanship."

  5. 5
    subsist on a meager allowance wordnet
Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    To save; to be parsimonious or stingy. intransitive
  2. 7
    limit in quality or quantity wordnet
  3. 8
    work hastily or carelessly; deal with inadequately and superficially wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Scanty. UK, US, colloquial, dated, dialectal

Synonyms

All synonyms
scantscrimpstintabstemiousasceticaustere

Example

More examples

"The company decided to skimp on the quality of its products to boost the profit margin."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Perhaps of North Germanic origin, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skimpijaną (“to skip, dance, gesture, mock”). Cognate with Icelandic skimpa (“to scoff at, scorn”), dialectal Swedish skimpa (“to skip, dance”), Faroese skumpa (“to shove, bump”), German schimpfen (“to grumble, scold”), Dutch schimpen (“to mock, make fun of, scold”). Possibly distantly related to change.

Etymology 2

Probably related to scamp and scrimp.

Related phrases

skimp and savemake fun of

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.