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Skimming   /skˈɪmɪŋ/   Listen
Skimming

noun
1.
The act of removing floating material from the surface of a liquid.
2.
Reading or glancing through quickly.  Synonym: skim.
3.
Failure to declare income in order to avoid paying taxes on it.
4.
The act of brushing against while passing.  Synonyms: grazing, shaving.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Skimming" Quotes from Famous Books



... me pilot him into Fairport, he put for the open sea, and there we took the gale. A real tear-away it was, and raked the old ship well-nigh clean from stem to stern; but they rigged her up again, and had her skimming the seas like a duck before two days were over. I had to leave Hal Hutchings on board of her; they claimed him for an English subject. It was like losing my eyes to ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... several cuckoos skimming over a large pond; and found, after some observation, that they were feeding on the Libellulae or dragon-flies; some of which they caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the wing. Notwithstanding what ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... entrancing, Magical motion; Hear them, in chorus, Singing high o'er us; Over the meadows Flit the bright shadows; Glad eyes are glancing, Tiny feet dancing. Up the high ridges Some of them clamber, Others are skimming Sky-lakes of amber, Others are swimming Over the ocean;— All are in motion, Life-ward all yearning, Longingly turning To the far-burning Star-light ...
— Faust • Goethe

... some pleasant walks, or reposing in the shade of the stately trees; others again intent upon their different amusements. Nothing should be heard on all sides, but the sharp stroke of the bat as it sent the ball skimming along the ground, the clear ring of the quoit, as it struck upon the iron peg: the noisy murmur of many voices, and the loud shout of mirth and delight, which would awaken the echoes far and wide, till the fields rung ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens

... General Gudin, whose well-regulated valour loved to confront none but useful dangers, and who besides was not a bold rider, had alighted from his horse to cross the stream, when, at that moment, a cannon-ball skimming the surface of the ground, broke both his legs. When the tidings of this misfortune reached the emperor, they put a stop to every thing—to discussion and action. Every one was thunderstruck; the victory of Valoutina seemed no longer to ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... hundred yards from her when the wind came again in a clap; she filled on the port tack and was off again, stooping and skimming like a swallow. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... merry season in Holland. Then all the canals are frozen, and there is great fun skating. Everybody has skates, even the little children. And how merry and happy the boys and girls are, skimming along on the ice! ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw

... accidents. He could find a river easily enough, to say nothing of other methods of effecting his purpose; but he had committed himself as to the impropriety of selecting a lake, so they need not be anxious about the white canoe and its occupant, as they watched it skimming the ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... roasting pieces have been cut, may be bought in the market for ten or twelve cents, from which a very rich soup may be made, besides skimming off fat for shortening. If the bones left from the rump be bought, they will be found full of marrow, and will give more than a pint of good shortening, without injuring the richness of the soup. The richest ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... Witch is not at home. In the midst of the kitchen is a large cauldron, and at its side, skimming it and seeing that it does not run over is a Meerkatze—a kind of female ape. The Meerkater, or male ape, squats by the fire, warming himself, and near by are several young apes. Mephistopheles is enraptured at the sight of the 'tender pretty beasts,' but Faust finds ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill

... the parchment pages of an immense register (one of a long series of similar volumes) gorged with burials. Over the fireplace was a ground-plan of the vaults underneath the church; and Mr Chick, skimming the literary portion of it aloud, by way of enlivening the company, read the reference to Mrs Dombey's tomb in full, before he could ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... newspapers. The great man comes very near to solving the problem heretofore considered insoluble, of being in two places at once. Two, did we say? Absurd! Three, four, five, half a dozen! What a man! Jumping here! Leaping there! Skipping North! Vaulting South! Skimming (like a CAMILLA in pantaloons) over the plains of the West! Then, as if by magic, whirling himself to the East! A man, did we say? Bah! GEORGE FRANCIS is clearly one of ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various

... it is I see Above the fog that sheets the mead - Yea, that which once could breathe and plead! - Skimming along with spectre-speed To a last ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... placed in a cool cellar or storeroom and the surface of the liquid treated to prevent mold. Before adding the paraffin or cottonseed oil, any scum or mold which may have formed on the surface of the liquid should be removed by skimming. ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray

... simmer it gently over the fire; carefully taking off whatever scum may rise to the top, till nothing more appears. Then stir, gradually, into it four pounds of double-refined loaf-sugar that has been finely powdered and sifted. Let the cream and sugar boil briskly together half an hour; skimming it, if necessary, and afterwards stirring it as long as it continues on the fire. Put it into small bottles; and when it is cold, cork it, and secure the corks with melted rosin. This cream, if properly prepared, will keep perfectly good during ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... the thumbling tit and perky wren Popped through the tiny doors of cosy balls And the blackbird lined with moss his high-built walls; A round mud cottage held the thrush's young, And straws from the untidy sparrow's hung. And, skimming forktailed in the evening air, When man first was were not the martens there? Did not those birds some human shelter crave, And stow beneath the cornice of his cave Their dry tight cups of clay? And from each door Peeped on a morning wiseheads three ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... overhanging cliffs in chattering reverberations, when the captain suddenly sung out, "Oars!" All hands lay on them. "Look there," he continued—"There—between the gigs—saw you ever any thing like that, gentlemen?" We all leant over; and although the boats, from the way they had, were skimming along nearer seven than five knots—there lay a large shark; he must have been twelve feet long at the shortest, swimming right in the middle, and equi-distant from both, and keeping way with us ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... the vessel. By this time the squall had passed, and it lightened up a little. There lay the felucca, waiting for the boat; and the men were reluctantly going into the latter again, when the commander of the felucca waved his hand to us, his craft fell off and filled, wing-and-wing, skimming away towards the coast, like a duck. We stood gaping and staring at her, not knowing what to make of this manoeuvre, when "bang!" went a heavy gun, a little on our weather quarter. The shot passed our wake, for we had filled our topsail, and it went skipping from sea to sea, after the ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... be seen dotted here and there along the avenue of elms, and the cawing and the gossip, to say nothing of the quarrelling, was almost deafening. The Blackbird settled on a bough close to the Rook, and as he did so he noticed some swallows skimming over the lawn far below them. They were beautiful birds, their blue-black plumage glinted in the sunshine, and now and then a quick turn displayed their brown throats and white breasts. They were darting hither and thither, so rapidly that the ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker

... that she was being treated like a doll, and resigned herself to Pete's swift, smooth stride. It was as though she were skimming through space, so quietly did his moccasined feet press the pine-needled earth, so exquisitely did his young strength save her from any jar. He whistled softly through his teeth as he ran in long, swift strides. And as he did ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt

... upflows, Des vols d'oiseaux marins Of winging sea-fowl lifting s'elevaient des roseaux, from the reeds; Et, pour montrer la route a la Pointing the route to his swift pirogue frele. dripping blade, S'enfuyaient en avant, trainant Then skimming before, tracing leur ombre grele their slender shade Dans le pli lumineux des eaux. In luminous foldings of ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... of veal, weighing about a pound and one-half, into a soup kettle, with a quart of water, one small onion, a sprig of parsley, a bay leaf, and the liquor drained from the clams, and simmer gradually for an hour and a half, skimming from time to time; strain the soup and again place it in the kettle; rub a couple of tablespoonfuls of butter with an equal amount of flour together and add it to the soup when it is boiling, stirring until again boiling; chop up twenty-five ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes

... the grotto, followed by Porthos. Dawn just tinted with purple and white the waves and plain; through the dim light, melancholy fir-trees waved their tender branches over the pebbles, and long flights of crows were skimming with their black wings the shimmering fields of buckwheat. In a quarter of an hour it would be clear daylight; the wakened birds announced it to all nature. The barkings which had been heard, which had stopped the three fishermen engaged in moving the boat, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... that, after asking her to walk with him, this odd man should take no pains to entertain her. Now and then he threw back his head with a strange, proud motion, and looked out to sea. The gulls, with their melancholy flight, were skimming upon the surface of the water. The desolation of that scene—it was the same which, a few days before, had rent poor Lucy's heart—appeared to enter his soul; but, strangely enough, it uplifted him, filling him with exulting thoughts. He quickened ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... and we turn our faces towards the harbour. The dusky oarsmen are waiting for us, and we are soon skimming over the dark water—I with my hoard of flowers in my lap and my eyes fixed on the great dim hulk of the San Miguel anchored ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins

... sounded enticing. It was the first sleighing of the season. Mabel and Ben had been off for a ride, and Arna and Hazen, too. How Peggy longed to be skimming over the snow instead of polishing knives all alone in the kitchen. Sue Cummings came that afternoon to invite Peggy to her party, given in Esther's honour. Sue enumerated six other gatherings that were being given that week in honour of Esther's visit home. Sue seemed to ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... therefore, attained when a further small addition of tin produces no apparent increase of brightness or fineness of grain. About three-quarters of the tin may be added at first, and the other quarter added with testing as described. The alloy is allowed to cool until on skimming the surface the metal appears bright and remains so without losing its lustre by oxidation for a sensible time; it will still ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... been shaped in accordance with this view, I stole back into bed and resumed my violated slumbers. Towards mid-day the weather began to moderate, and by four o'clock we were skimming along on a smooth sea, with all sails set. This state of prosperity continued for the next twenty-four hours; we had made about eighty knots since parting company with the Frenchman, and it was now time to run down West and pick up ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... between the mine and the river had been left behind, and the pony got down to her work on the ice, with the two white banks of snow on either side of the smooth track, John gave himself up to thinking about the subject which now so often engrossed his mind. Wrapped closely in his furs, with the cutter skimming along the ice, these thoughts found a pleasant accompaniment in the silvery tinkle of the bells which jingled around his horse's neck. As a general thing, he met no one on the icy road from the mine to the village. Sometimes there was a procession ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... herd, made his name clear in a moment. It was twilight on a wilderness lake. I was sitting in my canoe by the inlet, wondering what kind of bait to use for a big trout which lived in an eddy behind a rock, and which disdained everything I offered him. The swallows were busy, skimming low, and taking the young mosquitoes as they rose from the water. One dipped to the surface near the eddy. As he came down I saw a swift gleam in the depths below. He touched the water; there was a swirl, a splash—and the swallow was gone. The ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long

... persons, most of them colored, rested their forearms upon the upper rail of the Parchers' picket fence, offering to William's view a silhouette like that of a crowd at a fire. Beyond the fence, bright forms went skimming, shimmering, wavering over a white platform, while high overhead the young moon sprayed a thinner light down through the maple leaves, to where processions of rosy globes hung floating in the blue night. ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... he was sometimes called, Robin Goodfellow) was a shrewd and knavish sprite, that used to play comical pranks in the neighbouring villages; sometimes getting into the dairies and skimming the milk, sometimes plunging his light and airy form into the butter-churn, and while he was dancing his fantastic shape in the churn, in vain the dairymaid would labour to change her cream into butter: nor had the village swains any better success; whenever Puck chose to play his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... of May brought widely different experiences to the various girls, and went on its way, giving them into the keeping of the Rose Moon. On one of the rarest of rare days that ever a poet dreamed of as belonging to June, the Winnebagos found themselves skimming over the country roads on a Saturday afternoon's frolic. There were three automobile loads altogether, for all the mothers were along, besides Aunt Phoebe and Dr. Hoffman. It was a double occasion for celebration, for besides being the Rose Moon Ceremonial Meeting, it was the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... humble origin, Theodore Leigh, a graceless subaltern in the Artillery, had just returned from leave, and, going one day to the Rink, was "regularly flumocksed," as he expressed it, by the vision of Miss Lesbia Jones skimming over the ice like a swallow on the wing. And when she proceeded to cut a figure of 8 backwards, and execute another intricate movement called "the rose," his admiration became vehement, and, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... day a few Indians were seen circling around us on snow-shoes, and skimming along like birds; but we could not bring them within speaking distance. Godey, who was a little distance from the camp, had sat down to tie his moccasins, when he heard a low whistle near, and, looking up, saw two ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... get it, Gentlemen. I have purposely, skimming a wide subject, discarded much ballast; but you may read and scan and read again, and always you must come back to this, that the first poets sang their words to the harp or to some such instrument: and just there lies the secret why poetry differs from prose. The moment you ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... sword, and was in the act of drawing it when Philip, making a step forward, struck him full in the face with all his strength, knocking him backwards to the ground. His companion leapt from his seat, drawing a pistol from his belt as he did so; when Pierre sent a plate skimming across the room with great force. It struck the man in the mouth, cutting his lips and knocking out some of his front teeth. The pistol exploded harmlessly in the air, while the sudden shock and pain staggered ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... took them curiously, smiled at the primly-lettered, downhill lines, and then narrowed his eyes to skimming absorption. A strange expression gathered upon his face as he read. Missy didn't know exactly what to make of his working muscles—whether he was pained or angry or amused. But she was entirely unprepared for the fervour with which, when he finished, he seized her by the ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... along, following its graceful windings—sometimes touching bottom, and sometimes skimming smoothly over deep water, where Kitty could no longer clutch for the tall, bright grass that here and there had reared itself above the surface. Often Big Tom would sing out, "Lie low!" as some great bough, hanging over the stream, seemed stretching out its arms to catch them; ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge

... answers, but what renders me rather dilatory in this respect is the difficulty of finding a trustworthy carrier. How few of these gentry are able to convey a letter rather weightier than usual without lightening it by skimming its contents! Besides, I do not always care to send[76] whenever anyone is starting for Epirus: for I suppose that, having offered victims before your Amaltheia,[77] you at once started for the siege of Sicyon. And yet ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... the restless sea, and rocky isles, with patches of the most beautiful greensward, but with scarcely a single tree. The waves are leaping in whiteness against the cliffs, and thousands of sea-birds are floating in long lines on the billows, or skimming past you singly, and diving into the clear hissing waters as they near your vessel. One of the very first objects which arrests your senses is the Coryvreckan, or great whirlpool of the Hebrides, an awful feature in all the poetry and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... skimming the waves with his wings, and now shooting Up, arrow-like, into the dark clouds on high, The storm-finch is clamoring loudly and shrilly; The clouds can hear joy ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various

... in the moonlight, which bathed everything in silver, were to be seen troops of fays hurrying to the festival. Some sailed along the shore in mussel shells, others were on the backs of black swans whose bills looked like coral, and others were skimming along with their own gauzy wings, or lolling luxuriously ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... Paddington with a quarter of an hour to spare. Nearly all London seemed to be at the station, with the exception of Spennie. Of that light-haired and hearted youth there were no signs. But just as the train was about to start, the missing one came skimming down the platform and hurled himself in. For the first ten minutes he sat panting. At the conclusion of that ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse

... are the animable hopjack of my contemplayshins, your aydear is infernally skimming before my keymerycal fansee, when Murfy sends his puppies to the heys of slipping mortals; and when Febus shines from his merry dying throne; whereupon I shall canseif old time has lost his pinners, as also cubit his harrows, until ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... enemy. Coming to a corresponding attitude, I deliberately reloaded my rifle, and approached him with the greatest caution; for whether he intended to wait my second attack, or plunge forward and send me and Nigger skimming to some unknown corner of the earth, appeared a matter of doubt not quite made up. After a few brief moments for reconnoitring, I urged Nigger to advance to within less than thirty paces of where the bull stood ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeam dance Against ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... with the single-barrel was woodcock shooting; woodcock being by virtue of rarity a sort of royal game, and a miss at a woodcock a terrible disappointment. They have a trick of skimming along the very summit of a hedge, and looking so easy to kill; but, as they fly, the tops of tall briers here, willow-rods next, or an ash-pole often intervene, and the result is apt to be a bough cut off and nothing more. Snipes, on the contrary, I felt sure of with the single-barrel, and never ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... don't know—I should love it all! Think of the joy of skimming over half the earth—seeing it born again out of darkness every morning! Sometimes, when I've been up all night with a patient, and have seen the world come back to me like that, I've been almost mad with its beauty; and then the thought that I've never seen more than a little corner ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... corporal," cried I, "we'll win your epaulets for you;" but he turned away without a word; and not waiting further, I pushed out the skiff, and sent her skimming ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... skimming through school and taking walking trips through Norway punctuated by fleeting visits home, remaining as childish and unconcerned as to vital things as her mother had been at fourteen, Steve left the Constantine factory and ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... some one grasp him around the waist and hurry him from the spot, and ten minutes later they were in the boat skimming over the water ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... the fleet of the Greeks in the harbour—I see the flag of my galley above the forest of their masts. I see detached vessels skimming along the waves hither and thither as in holiday and sport; but discipline slackens where no foe dares to show himself. Eretrian, ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... long, the swallow is a most instructive pattern of unwearied industry and affection: for from morning to night, while there is a family to be supported, she spends the whole day in skimming close to the ground, and exerting the most sudden turns and quick evolutions. Avenues, and long walks under the hedges, and pasture-fields, and mown meadows where cattle graze, are her delight, especially if there are trees interspersed; because in such spots insects most abound. When ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... expert went on: "Our test subject read it carefully, scanning rather than skimming. Cameras recorded the movements of his eyes in order for us to tell just what he was reading at any given moment, in order to correlate what was going on in his mind with the reactions of the machine's indicators, if ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Lloyd, F., and my father and mother, with high approval. It's quite silly and horrid fun, and what I want is the BEST book about the Buccaneers that can be had - the latter B's above all, Blackbeard and sich, and get Nutt or Bain to send it skimming by the fastest post. And now I know you'll write to me, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... she leaped upon the sea wall as if she would throw herself into the ocean, which advanced and retreated, seething around his body. But a different fate was to be hers. As she leaped forward two strong wings sprouted from her shoulders, and before she knew it she found herself skimming lightly as a bird over the water. From her throat came sounds of sobbing, which changed as she flew into the shrill piping of a bird. Soft feathers now covered her body, and a crest rose above the forehead which had once been so fair. ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown

... been gone long, when those left in camp caught sight of the little boat skimming swiftly across the Xingu below them. The preliminaries of the singular movement in their favor was going on ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... which her words Produced, the night-hawk's startling cry Succeeded, and, round and round, above Her head a milk-white falcon soared, Now sailing high, now skimming low, As if some mystic orison In exultation ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... one night's shelter; it was early morning and deadly cold. The whole picture was sharp as a cut crystal—the triple court-yard, the stone pavement, the gray well, and frozen pile of firewood. He saw, recognized, lost it, and knew himself to be skimming down the Nevskiy Prospekt and across the Winter Palace Square, where the great angel towers upon its rose-granite monument. Forward, forward he was carried, along the bank of the frozen Neva and over the Troitskiy ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... would probably have injured that officer's prospects, Delarey dug his trenches not at the foot of the hill but in sinuous lines some little way in advance of it, by which he gained the power of meeting an attack with grazing or skimming fire, and which also removed the firing line from physical features on which the British guns could be laid. It is said that he manned the works on the slope with burghers firing black powder so as to draw the enemy's fire away from the trenches in ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... "Merely skimming the surface of life, I know nothing, by my own experience, of its deep and warm realities. I have achieved none of those objects which the instinct of mankind especially prompts them to pursue, and the accomplishment of which must therefore beget a native satisfaction. The truly ...
— Fragments From The Journal of a Solitary Man - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... is evidence that Massachusetts assents to his "understanding," and accepts his oath with that meaning! Why I thought I had fathomed the pro-slavery depths of the Constitution when I read over all its wicked clauses—but that is skimming only the surface, if the Constitution allows every man, to whom it commits power to use it, as he chooses to "understand" the conditions, and not as the nation understands them. If with this right, Abolitionists may take office ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... disclaiming as earnestly as some people claim; "I do things that look like acts of invention, but they are acts of memory. I could show you plates and engravings of all the things I have seemed to invent. A man who studies books instead of skimming them can cut a dash in a desert island, until the fatal word goes forth—invent; and ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... within a quarter of a mile of the Parsonage, and rapidly approaching the sharp bend around the rocky spur of the hill. Dolly's skimming hind-legs spurned the road faster and faster, and the fences flickered by in a terrible hurry. They whisked around the curve with a sharp, grating sound of the wheels on the rock, and the Parsonage lay but a short distance ahead. Suddenly a white object seemed to ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... accident. Jardin buttoned himself into an elaborate and most expensive leather coat, carefully, adjusted his goggles, stepped into a plane beside the usual pilot who winked slyly at Lee, and proceeded, to send his big bug skimming here and there across the field under the wobbly and uncertain guidance of Horace. They did not leave the ground, but Frank soon soared upward on a short flight that filled Bill with joy and envy all at the same time. He felt that ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb

... and climbed into a nearby jet boat. The enlisted spaceman at the controls sent the tiny vessel skimming across the broad expanse of the spaceport toward the ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman

... put two pounds of beef cut from the lower part of the round, into two quarts of cold water and let come slowly to the boil, skimming carefully until perfectly clear. When this point is reached, add a small onion, two stalks of celery, two cloves, and keep at the boiling point for seven hours; then strain into an earthen bowl and let cool until next day. A half hour before needed, skim off all the fat, ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman

... appeared to have become in earnest. Ceasing its airy defence, it took on the aggressive. Instead of a flitting sunbeam, it became a shaft from a burning glass; instead of one merry humming-bird, it became a whole swarm of skimming, swooping, darting swallows, waging war on a bewildered owl. Before the sudden fury of the onslaught, Edmund gave back a pace. And either because his anger made him reckless or his great bulk was against him, he presently was forced to draw back another step. ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... with the beauty of riotous nature, Thick with the tangles of fruit-laden vines.[A] From fragrant clusters, grown purple with ripeness, Rare, spicy odors float out to the sea,[B] Where the gray gulls flit with restless endeavor, Skimming the waves in ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten

... abreast of them now, and skimming along so close that one might have tossed a biscuit aboard of her. For an instant Captain Peasley hesitated; then Emerson saw the ends of his bristly mustache rise above an expansive grin as he winked portentously. But his voice was convincingly loud ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... it's funny," said Ralph. "We haven't had such a circus for years. Never had. Of course I shouldn't like to see you go behind the bars,—not that. But you fellows can't expect to go on forever skimming off the cream without having somebody squeal sometime. You ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... another lake of antiquity, it had the power of drawing them down from the wing into its poisonous waters. This dream, propagated by certain visionary travellers, is now completely discredited. Flocks of swallows may be seen skimming along its surface with the utmost impunity, while the absence of all other species is easily explained by a glance at the naked hills and barren plains, which ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... hallucination had fallen so close to Asako's brain, that her thoughts seemed to be caught up into the dizzy whirlwind and to be skimming around and round the world at the speed of an express aeroplane. Like a clock whose regulation is out of order, the hour-hand of her life seemed to be racing the minute-hand, and the minute-hand to be covering the face of the dial ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... stones. I wish we had him safe in the well in our yard. You see, sir, the Directory sent him to Egypt to get rid of him; but he came back again! And he will come back again, you maybe sure of that, sir; unless—" Here the good woman, having finished skimming her pot, looked up and perceived that all the party were standing uncovered except the individual to whom, she had been speaking. She was confounded, and the embarrassment she experienced at having spoken so ill of the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... maids who swept and scrubbed and dusted and scoured the kitchen till no speck of dirt was anywhere visible, till the copper shone like mirrors, and the tables were nearly as smooth as polished silver or ivory. Going into the dairy where pans of new milk stood ready for skimming, and looking out for a moment through the lattice window, she saw old Hugo Jocelyn and Robin Clifford walking together across the garden, engaged in close and earnest conversation. A little sigh escaped her as she thought: "They are talking about me!"—then, on a sudden impulse, she went back ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... murmured Lancelot, smiling. And, indeed, the image of Mary Ann skimming the meads on a pony in the sunshine, was more pleasant to contemplate than that of Mary Ann whitening the wintry steps. "What a complexion you must have had to start with!" he cried aloud, surveying the not ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... almost pleasure, time shrinks to a mere point, and death and life appear indifferent. To and fro he paced like a caged brute; his mind whirling through the universe of thought and memory; his eyes, as he went, skimming the legends on the wall. The crumbling whitewash was all full of them: Tahitian names, and French, and English, and rude sketches of ships under ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... considerable attention to the upper regions, hoping to glimpse the aerostat, and holding matches in readiness to raise a flare by way of alighting signal. But it was not until the early dawn that Bruno caught sight of the air-ship, just skimming the tree-tops, the better to escape ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... next day after this eclaircissement on the subject of Touchwood, that Lord Etherington dropped as usual into the bookseller's shop, got his papers, and skimming his eye over the shelf on which lay, till called for, the postponed letters destined for the Aultoun, saw with a beating heart the smart post-mistress toss amongst them, with an air of sovereign contempt, a pretty large packet, addressed ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... of thinking things out logically, or of jumping to conclusions; of thinking critically and independently, or of taking things unquestioningly on the authority of others. We may form the habit of carefully reading good, sensible books, or of skimming sentimental and trashy ones; of choosing elevating, ennobling companions, or the opposite; of being a good conversationalist and doing our part in a social group, or of being a drag on the conversation, ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... plough in that fallow, outside the paddock." The master went over about nine o'clock to see what kind of a ploughman was Jack, and what did he see but the little boy driving the bastes, and the sock and coulter of the plough skimming along the sod, and Jack ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... threw myself clown in an arm-chair near the window, and watched the white-sailed boats skimming like flecks of silver across the blue-green water. The tinkling of a tambourine by and by attracted my wandering attention, and looking into the street just below my balcony I saw a young girl dancing. She was lovely to look at, and she danced with exquisite grace as well as modesty, but the ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... Palus, skimming the sand not three horse lengths behind the piebalds, was trapped and certain to be piled up against the wrecked Blues, under three or four more of the field ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... her face rising out of it as clear as a nun's. Nevertheless, it was her realization of need for it that quite suddenly ended her quest. She turned for home, stopping at the Public Library for one of her frequent perusals of the St. Louis newspapers. She read quickly, her eye skimming the obituary, personal, and social columns. For a week there had daily appeared a little insertion which invariably caused ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... representation of those scenes of Venetian story which are modeled upon them in bass-relief. Here I like to take my unknown friend—my scoundrel facchino or rascal gondolier—as he comes to buy his dinner, and bargains eloquently with the cook, who stands with a huge ladle in his hand capable of skimming mysterious things from vasty depths. I am spell-bound by the drama which ensues, and in which all the chords of the human heart are touched, from those that tremble at high tragedy, to those that are shaken by broad farce. When the diner has bought his ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... landlocked harbor than at Northbury. It was a famous harbor for boating. Even at low tide people could get on the water, and in the summer time this gay sheet of dark blue sparkling waves had many small yachts, fishing smacks, and row-boats of all sizes and descriptions skimming about on its surface. In the spring a large fishing trade was done here, and then the steamers whistle? and shrieked, and disturbed the primitive harmony of the place. But by midsummer the great shoals of mackerel went ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... certain fine spring morning, by the 10 a.m. Scotch express, was one who had been so far able to propitiate the guard as to secure a whole compartment to himself. He was enjoying himself in a quiet way—smoking, and skimming his papers, and taking a bird's-eye view now and again at the landscape that was flying past him at the rate of forty miles an hour. Few people who cared to speculate as to his profession would have ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various

... man—that old conceited notion that the entire earth was a planet of provisions for human consumption. It had never even occurred to him to think that the horses were made but to ride and to work. Cows of course gave milk for the sake of the dairy; cream rose on milk for ease in skimming; when churned, it turned sour, that the family might have fresh buttermilk. Hides were for shoes. The skin on sheep, it was ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... shields. Forthwith the fifty heroes set heartily to work, banging with might and main, and raised such a terrible clatter that the birds made what haste they could to get away; and though they had shot half the feathers out of their wings, they were soon seen skimming among the clouds, a long distance off and looking like a flock of wild geese. Orpheus celebrated this victory by playing a triumphant anthem on his harp, and sang so melodiously that Jason begged him to desist, lest, as ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... we can only rarely dam up deep enough to go swimming and take our ease, it is his positive need (unless he is a genius who can afford to let drift away much of his only source of gold) to keep a note-book handy for the sieving and skimming of this running stream. Samuel Butler has good advice on this topic. Of ideas, he says, you must throw salt on their tails or they fly away and you never see their bright plumage again. Poems, stories, epigrams, all the happiest freaks of the mind, flit by on wings and at ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... and an ounce of butter. When this melts and blends add a little chopped red pepper along with three tablespoonfuls of vinegar and a teaspoonful of mustard. Stir together well, then mix in half an ounce of flour and half a pint of fish stock. Simmer for half an hour, skimming occasionally and, finally ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore

... having taken in the ships and anchored them in a secure place, they were decked out with flags. The crews then fired a salute with all their artillery, so that the very city shook. Several of the larger guns being discharged to seaward, the shots went skimming and ricochetting over the water, causing great amusement to the people collected on the beach, while the trumpets ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... that, I'm entirely reconciled to staying here," returned Kit. "Poppycheek, you are a wonderful dancer! You're like a butterfly skimming over a cobweb!" ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells

... Botticelli had great power of showing the expression in a face, and the movement in a figure. Here the movements may seem overstrained, a fault which grew upon him in his old age; the angel, with the two shepherds on the right, has come skimming over the ground and points emphatically at the Babe, and the angel in front embraces Savonarola with vehemence. The artists of the early Renaissance had learnt with so much trouble to draw figures in motion that their pleasure ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway

... trouble and sorrow of her life upon her, and with the full understanding in her heart that all which had passed before this day was nothing but the skimming of light shadows across her way, Joan rode homeward. A mile, and the drooping shoulders stiffened; the bent head lifted; Joan looked about her at the sun making the sheeplands glad. A mile, and the short breath of ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... to this lifeless landscape, lay the peopled mere, fringed around with dead reeds standing so still in the frosty air that they might have been painted things. On this mere half the population of Leyden seemed to be gathered; at least there were thousands of them, shouting, laughing, and skimming to and fro in their bright garments like flocks of gay-plumaged birds. Among them, drawn by horses with bells tied to their harness, glided many sledges of wickerwork and wood mounted upon iron runners, their fore-ends fashioned to quaint shapes, such as the heads of dogs or bulls, or Tritons. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... Maisanguaq's harpoon went wild. He jealously watched Ootah and struck without skill, carried away by chagrin and rage. Ere made valiant attacks for he, too, thought of Annadoah, but the walrus invariably went skimming from under his blows. Papik's harpoon glanced the backs of half a dozen. Finally it landed. He shouted with glee. The inflated floats attached to the harpoon lines bobbed crazily on the surface of the ensanguined waters as the animals tossed in their ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... railroads, Skimming on the seas, Bounding on the mountain-tops, Battling with the breeze. Roaming through the forest, Scampering on the plain, Never stopping, always ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment's freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a moment's rest for dreamy laziness - no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o'er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies white and yellow, or the sombre- waving ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... the Per Cent of Skin in Beans; Extraction of Fat from Peanuts; Microscopic Examination of Milk; Formaldehyde in Cream or Milk; Gelatine in Cream or Milk; Testing for Oleomargarine; Testing for Watering or Skimming of Milk; Boric Acid in Meat; Microscopic Examination of Cereal Starch Grains; Identification of Commercial Cereals; Granulation and Color of Flour; Capacity of Flour to absorb Water; Acidity of Flour; Moist and Dry Gluten; Gliadin ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... and fell to singing one of her most enticing songs just under the dairy window. Sally was so struck with the pretty tune, which was unhappily used, as is too often the case, to set off some very loose words, that she jumped up, dropped the skimming dish into the cream, and ran out to ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More

... shone on it so brightly, and it rolled so curiously when she pawed, that she picked it up in a mechanical way and trotted back over the rise, where are found herself at the Dog-town. Just then two great Prairie-hawks came skimming like pirates over the plain. As soon as they were in sight the Prairie- dogs all barked, jerking their tails at each bark, and hid below. When all were gone Tito walked on toward the hole of the big fat fellow whose body she ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton

... letter, and Paul watched the white hand skimming over the paper. When it was written she read it out to him. It was really an excellent letter of introduction, business-like and cordial. Paul received it with devout thanksgiving. Then Claudia gave him the address of the boarding-house to which she ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... tramped on the mat to warn them of his approach, and appeared just as Dolly was skimming into a chair, and Mr. Bopp picking up the spoons, which he dropped again to meet Dick, with a face "clear shining after rain;" and kissing him on both cheeks after the fashion of his country, he said, ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott

... not relish it so well when fed without the honey. I have usually taken about equal quantities of each, adding a pint of water to ten pounds of this mixture, and making it as hot as it will bear without boiling over, and skimming it. ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... morning the judge proposed a sleigh ride, and soon the entire party were skimming over the ground in two big old-fashioned sleighs. Though the day was fairly cold, the guests were too warmly wrapped to pay any attention to the weather, and keenly enjoyed every moment of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... of which a mighty death agony beat back the troubled waves of the trade wind. Only then did the muffled double boom of the explosion reach the ears of the spectators, presently to be followed by a whispering, swift-skimming wavelet that swept irresistibly across the bigger surges and lapped the ship's side, as for a message that the ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... conversion into peptones, which has been stopped by the cold, will be promptly started again when the fluid is warmed, and then a very few minutes will suffice to make it disagreeably bitter. At first the skimming should be thorough, and for the treatment of dyspepsia or albuminuria the milk must be as creamless as possible. The milk of the common cow is, for our purposes, preferable to that of the Alderney. It may be used warm ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell

... be in the buttery, skimming cream, so no one spied them as they ran through the kitchen and down the cellar stairs. The cellar was a very large one. In fact, there were half a dozen cellars opening one into the other, like the rooms of a house. Wood and coal were kept in some of them, in others vegetables, and there was a swinging ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge

... and images taken from the summer evening, the light of which was cast upon them both. He was sitting by the open window, and the boy was standing by his side, and their hands were clasped. It was a Saturday evening. The bells were ringing. The earliest swallows, only just returned, were skimming the walls of the houses. The dim sky was smiling above the city, which was wrapped in shadow. The boy held his breath and listened to the fairy-tale his man friend was telling him. And Olivier, warmed by the eagerness of his young hearer, was caught up ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... toiling island in its turn sinking to repose, restored to nature for the night. As the smoke cleared, masses of verdure became visible between the workshops. The river could be heard lapping the banks; and the swallows, skimming the water with tiny twitter, fluttered around the great ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... wanted something in the way of game, nothing was to be seen, and they were fully half-way back and the evening coming on fast, but with the moon well up ready to give its light as the sun went down, before there was a fair chance. They had seen partridges again, and sent a flock of ducks skimming over the reeds, but in both cases they had risen far ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... of the greater celandine, meaning a swallow, was given it because it begins to bloom when the first returning swallows are seen skimming over the water and freshly ploughed fields in a perfect ecstasy of flight, and continues in flower among its erect seed capsules until the first cool days of autumn kill the gnats and small winged insects not driven ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... as Waldon had arranged, by a high-powered runabout, the tender to his own yacht, a slim little craft of mahogany and brass, driven like an automobile, and capable of perhaps twenty- five or thirty miles an hour. We jumped in and were soon skimming over the waters of the ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... little Fairy. Sun, moon, and stars cheered her, and winds were propitious, so that our voyagers soon found themselves skimming over the billows of the ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne

... very full of society life, though not of the kind that I cared for. I went into it to please mamma; and succeeded but partially; for she insisted I was too sober and did not half take the French tone of easy, light, graceful skimming over the surface of things. But mamma could be deep and earnest too on her own subjects of interest. The news of President Lincoln's proclamation, setting free the slaves of the rebel States, roused her ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... boat down near the Custom-house, at a point of the Vassoli Ostrou, called the Strelka, and were soon skimming along through a small branch of the Neva, toward the island of Krestofskoi. The water was literally alive with boats, all filled with gay parties of pleasure-seekers, some on their way to the different islands, some to the bath-houses which abound in every direction, and all apparently ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... excitement, would begin to leap and plunge and tug at the bit and beg for the word to go. Another moment, and, carefully held until just as the puffing engine came well alongside, Van would leap like arrow from the string, and away we would speed, skimming along the springy turf. Sometimes the engineer would curb his iron horse and hold him back against the "down-grade" impetus of the heavy Pullmans far in rear; sometimes he would open his throttle and give her full head, and the long train ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... walks, with four hours in the morning and two in the evening at the piano, an hour or so spent in skimming over some of the scores in his vast musical library, considerable reading, especially at meal-times, of Russian, French and English novelists and the German philosophers, whom he approached worshipfully, formed the occupations of his quiet life during ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... himself useful in other ways. There was a large tub outside the hut—had been since the Lapps lived there— which was cracked and leaked abundantly, but Solem stopped the cracks with bacon fat and boiled my clothes in it. It was very funny to watch him imperturbably skimming off the fat ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... was determined, Jack was told to let go his hold, the sheet was drawn aft, and away sped the boat. No sooner did Mulford cause the little craft to keep away than it almost flew, as if conscious it were bound to its proper home, skimming swiftly over the waves, like a bird returning eagerly to its nest. An hour later the party breakfasted. While at this meal, Jack Tier pointed out to the mate a white speck, in the south-eastern board, which he took to ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... lively fellow enough in the days of his better fortune, was completely cast down by his present ill luck, and cowed by the ferocity of his wife. From morning till night the neighbors could hear this woman's tongue, and understand her doings; bellows went skimming across the room, chairs were flumped down on the floor, and poor Gambouge's oil and varnish pots went clattering through the windows, or down the stairs. The baby roared all day; and Simon sat pale and idle in a corner, taking a small sup at the brandy-bottle, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... murmured a submissive "Yes, sir," winked at the subjugated captain, buckled on his sword, pressed his hat down with a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had arrived at his next deduction, was skimming merrily shoreward in the ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... fact, he is certainly the most Job-like of travellers. We could sometimes quarrel with him for making so very light of heavy inconveniences and positive misfortunes. It is necessary to pause and reflect in order to appreciate what he endured. The hasty reader, skimming the page without allowing his imagination to dwell on the Doctor's brief indications of the many sufferings, the wounds and sickness (the latter often caused by unwholesome diet), the hunger and thirst, the daily and nightly exposure, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... fell blind, did not regret it so much for the weightier kinds of reading—the Paradise Lost, or Comus, he could have read to him—but he missed the pleasure of skimming over with his own eye a magazine, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... with legs carefully bandaged. Jack drove him at reckless speed, not considering those slender, braceleted legs. Jack had a racing-gig, and when in it, with striped coat, cap on one side, cigarette in mouth, lines held taut, skimming along the roads in clouds of dust, he thought himself the man and true sportsman which he was not. Some of the old Lee silver had paid for ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... sufficiently considered how far the moral and physical health of the modern city depends upon the constant influx of fresh blood from the country, which has ever been the source from which the town draws its best citizenship? You cannot keep on indefinitely skimming the pan and have equally good milk left. In America the drain may continue a while longer without the inevitable consequences becoming plainly visible. But sooner or later, if the balance of trade in this human traffic be not ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett

... we go!" and Tom bent his back to the oars, so that the boat was soon skimming swiftly over the water. Mr. Brown liked the way the big boy managed the boat, and he knew he would feel safe when Bunny and Sue were ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope

... sweep by, and here turn off to the right. That line of railway from which we have turned aside runs on to Dumfries and Carlisle; a branch of it keeps along the Ayrshire coast to Ardrossan and Ayr. In a little while we are skimming the surface of a bleak, black moor; it is a dead level, and not in the least interesting: but, after a plunge into the mirk darkness of a long tunnel, we emerge into daylight again; and there, sure enough, are the bright waters of the Clyde. We are on its south side; it has spread out to ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd



Words linked to "Skimming" :   remotion, stealing, theft, touch, larceny, touching, removal, thievery, shaving, reading, thieving



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