Skinnie

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Alternative letter-case form of skinnie alt-of
  2. 2
    Someone of Somali descent. derogatory, ethnic, plural-normally, slang, slur, uncommon

    "Hey, watch out for skinnies. They're all over the rooftops."

Synonyms

All synonyms
somalisomalisomaliansomalicoon

Example

More examples

"Hey, watch out for skinnies. They're all over the rooftops."

Etymology

Named by American soldiers stationed in Somalia who felt that Somali culture was strange enough to seem "alien", comparing the Somalis to a race of aliens from the novel "Starship Troopers", which was popular among American soldiers. This term was not related to the famine in Somalia in the 1990's.

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