skinny

From Middle English skinny (“resembling skin”), equivalent to skin +‎ -y. The meaning associated with lack of fat or muscle possibly derives from the phrase skin and bones; the meaning associated with nudity refers to the exposed skin.

• IPA^(key): /ˈskɪni/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪni

skinny (comparative skinnier, superlative skinniest)

1. (informal) Thin, generally in a negative sense (as opposed to slim, which is thin in a positive sense).

   Her recent weight loss has made her look rather skinny than slender

2. (informal, of food or beverages) Having reduced fat or calories.
   • 1974, National Fruit & Syrup Manufacturers Assn, Dairy & ice cream field, Volume 157, Issues 1-6‎ (cooking), page 45:

     ...into the skinny chocolate milk?

   • 1982, Mykola Ponedilok, Funny tears: short stories (history), page 186:

     Also bring me three quarts of ‘skinny’ milk. What the matter, Mr. Kuziavka, have you just fallen from the moon?! Don't you know about ‘skinny’ milk? It's milk, from which the fat has been removed and...

   • 2008, Sydney Bauer, Undertow (fiction), →ISBN, page 387:

     “All right,” said Katz, who, waiting on his skinny milk latte, turned to snap his fingers at the only waiter in the room.

   • 2019, Fancy AF Cocktails‎:

     People always order a "skinny" margarita without knowing exactly what that means for the ingredients. Skinny means the cocktail has a natural sweetener like lime juice or agave nectar, and none of that slushy, syrupy sweet-and-sour mix.

3. Naked; nude (chiefly used in the phrase skinny dipping).
   • 1972, Robert Woodruff Anderson, Solitaire: Double solitaire, page 53:

     Let's take our clothes oft" and go swimming skinny.

   • 2000, Linda Rogers, Say my name: the memoirs of Charlie Louie, page 25:

     We never swam skinny in the river like the hippy kids on the farm across the railway tracks.

   • 1994, Geoffrey Atheling Wagner, A singular passion: a novel, page 200:

     When I went in again, the desirable alien was in bed with eyelids closed [...], obviously sleeping skinny, to employ her own term for it.

   • 2007, Weston P. Hatfield, The Governor's Choice, page 20:

     with stimulative sybaritic aids ranging from a mountain sunset to a dip — skinny or otherwise — in a heated pool

   • 2008, Kitty Crockett Robertson, Measuring Time - By an Hourglass, page 220:

     She used to swim "skinny" in Sprague's cove in broad daylight, leaving her bathing dress on the float.

4. (of clothing) Tight-fitting.

   skinny jeans

5. (golf) Synonym of thin (“type of shot where the ball is struck by the bottom part of the club head”)

• See also Thesaurus:scrawny

• See also Thesaurus:obese

skinny (plural skinnies)

1. (colloquial) The details or facts; especially, those obtained by gossip or rumor.

   She called to get the skinny on the latest goings-on in the club.

2. A state of nakedness; nudity.
   • 2004, Mr. Skin, Mr. Skin's Skincyclopedia, page 34:

     Again, she appears nude whilst dipping in the skinny, but this time, instead of being eaten by a shark or a bear, she encounters a Japanese submarine

   • 2009, Susan Wittig Albert, Wormwood, page 90:

     "Nobody would bother peeking these days," she said ruefully, "in bathing suits or in the skinny."

3. (informal) A low-fat serving of coffee.
4. (nonstandard) A skinny being.
   • 1959, Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers, page 10:

     "Either a skinny had judged (correctly) that it was worth one of their buildings to try for one of us, or one of my own mates was getting mighty careless with fireworks" .."A congregation in church — a skinny flophouse — maybe even their defense headquarters. All I knew was that it was a very big room filled with more skinnies than I wanted to see in my whole life."

5. An obstacle for a horse to jump over, consisting of a narrow fence.

skinny (third-person singular simple present skinnies, present participle skinnying, simple past and past participle skinnied)

1. (transitive, informal) To reduce or cut down.
   • 1982, Ward's Auto World, volume 18, numbers 1-6, page 65:

     Like an accordion at a country wedding producing sweet-and-sour notes, some importers are expanding their U.S. retail automotive operations while others are skinnying down.

   • 1996, Kevin Dowd, Getting Connected: The Internet at 56K and Up, page 25:

     By the end of the chapter, we will have (hopefully) skinnied the list of contenders further (perhaps there will be none left).

   • 2001, Bankruptcy Court Decisions (volume 38, page A-7)

     Said one judge: "What is other than the process of skinnying the company down? Are there some inefficiencies in that? If so, they can be absorbed by the economy and the country."