skive
/ˈskaɪv/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.64 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Truancies, rather bewilderingly, have risen among children on the programme; the government hopes this is because children skive more as they get older."
- "Work experience as an arsey teenager is pretty straightforward: disappear into the storeroom, smoke a few cigarettes, text your mates and watch the minute hand tick slowly by. If there's nowhere suitable to hide, all you need is a vacant computer and you can chat to your skiving associate in the building next door."
- "Mr Smith's history classes are a total skive."
- "I got the bus to school, and the driver gave me the eye, thinking I was on the skive, and I started to explain that there was something up with my head, but then I couldn't be bothered."
- "Another school skive! I only realised this when my dentist's receptionist told me to expect a fair wait till I could be seen."
- "But at least they preserved the idea that books were important and that reading and writing were more than just a skive for people too weedy to hack at one another with swords."
Etymology
Probably from French esquiver (“slink away”), from Middle French esquiver (“to escape”), from Spanish esquivar (“to avoid, reject, elude”), from esquivo (“contemptuous, loathsome”), itself from Old French eschiver, of East Germanic origin, from Gothic *𐍃𐌺𐌹𐌿𐌷𐍃 (*skiuhs, “afraid, barefaced”), from Proto-Germanic *skeuhaz (“afraid, frightened”). Cognate with English shy, eschew.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
- Root: esquiver, esquivar, eschiver, *𐍃𐌺𐌹𐌿𐌷𐍃, *skeuhaz, schijf