Etymology From Middle English skif, from Middle French esquif, from Old Italian schifo (“small boat”), from Lombardic skif (“boat”), from Proto-Germanic *skipą (“boat, ship”). Doublet of ship.
1
A small flat-bottomed open boat with a pointed bow and square stern.
Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
As Hiro is entering their neighborhood, he sees men running down the undulating pontoon bridge that serves as the main street, carrying guns and knives. The local constabulary. More men of the same description emerge from the byways and skiffs and sampans, joining them.1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 385:
2
Any of various types of boats small enough for sailing or rowing by one person.
I went alone into a Shepherd's boat, A skiff that to a willow-tree was tied Within a rocky cave, its usual home […]1799, William Wordsworth, The Two-Part Prelude, Book I:
Graceful old houses stand by the edge of the Great Ouse and gaze down at the houseboats, skiffs and motor-cruisers that moor there.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications, page 223, about Hemingford Grey:
Etymology From Middle English skif, from Middle French esquif, from Old Italian schifo (“small boat”), from Lombardic skif (“boat”), from Proto-Germanic *skipą (“boat, ship”). Doublet of ship.
Etymology From Scots skiff (“light shower of rain or snow”), from skiff (“move lightly”); compare the derivative skiffle (whence English skiffle) and (English skift (“light dusting of snow”) from) Scots skift (“light shower of snow”), from skift (“move lightly”), perhaps related to shift/Old Norse skipta, or perhaps an onomatopoeic formation.
1
A light, fleeting shower of rain or snow, or gust of wind, etc.
A skiff of rain blew into the shed and the two men moved their chairs back.
A little on again, off again, skiff of rain made the road slippery in spots.2013, J. T. Brewer, Stewards of the White Circle: Calm Before the Storm:
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Meadowlarks are in full voice, as are all manner of ducks, geese and gulls; with just a skiff of wind, sound travels a long way on mornings such as this.2019 May 5, Brad Dokken, “More bust than boom for dwindling prairie chickens in Grand Forks County”, in Grand Forks Herald:
A lashing skiff of rain sheeted across the desert, a gift from the heavens that cooled my skin and allowed some color to return to the world. It was enough to combat the smell of creosote, but not enough to sustain the land, so the desert lay back ...2019, Craig Johnson, Depth of Winter: A Longmire Mystery, Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 246:
2
A (typically light) dusting of snow or ice (or dust, etc) (on ground, water, trees, etc).
At sunrise there was a slight skiff of ice on some water in a bucket; […]1877, George Monro Grant, Ocean to Ocean: Sandford Fleming's Expedition Through Canada in 1872, page 131:
There was a light skiff of snow on the ground. The air was filled with flying flakes, which stung his cheeks sharply. A little streak of red was beginning to show in the east, and somewhere, far away, he heard a chicken crow sleepily.1899, Clara Vawter, Of Such is the Kingdom..., page 72:
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Bring a natural-looking touch of snow indoors by using your fingertips to lightly spread White Christmas Snow along the tops of the branches on your Christmas tree. To create a light skiff of snow on a six-foot noble fir, double the recipe.1999, Sara Perry, Christmastime Treats: Recipes and Crafts for the Whole FamilyA Holiday Celebrations Book, Chronicle Books, →ISBN:
A thick skiff of dust covered the contents of the room and revealed hundreds of tracks made by very large rodents.2001, Dave Gilham, Hell 7 New York 0, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 53:
It was getting time to start trapping and Hawk was getting anxious. Fall was everywhere from the yellow aspens, to the skiff of ice on the beaver ponds in the morning. Elk could be heard bugling up and down the valley […]2001, Wayde Bulow, Lure of the Mountains: The Frontier Life of a Mountain Man, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 176:
... the shore of Pontchartrain, dripping blood heavily into the inland sea, and watching as a crystal path hurtled forward across the lake, six feet wide, as thin as the skiff of ice on a basin left in the window on the night of the first freeze of autumn.2004, Orson Scott Card, The Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Tor Books, →ISBN, page 116:
Etymology From Scots skiff (“light shower of rain or snow”), from skiff (“move lightly”); compare the derivative skiffle (whence English skiffle) and (English skift (“light dusting of snow”) from) Scots skift (“light shower of snow”), from skift (“move lightly”), perhaps related to shift/Old Norse skipta, or perhaps an onomatopoeic formation.
1
Dialectal, Of rain or snow To fall lightly or briefly, and lightly cover the ground (etc).
We must be constantly alert to increased accident potentials in taxiing, takeoff, and landings on ice-glazed and snow-skiffed runways.1957, Combat Crew: Magazine of the Strategic Air Command, page 3:
The sharp wind divides the dense fur of their winter coats while they survey the snow-skiffed ground of their silent town.1981, United States Government Printing Office, Devils Tower, Government Printing Office, published 1985, →ISBN, page 50:
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1983, Roy McFadden, The Selected Roy McFadden, Dundonald, N. Ireland : Blackstaff Press With glimpses through the skiffing rain / Of Donegal across the bay, / And Scotland when the early mist is blown, […]
The first year I stayed on 'til snow skiffed the highways & we had to burn the frost out of the ditchline with coal.1986, Waves:
[…] two hours probing burnished lamps into rain-skiffed darkness, a digger burred, clanked […]1998, David Anderson, A Tract of Time, editorips@usp.ac.fj, →ISBN, page 88:
He crossed a bridge to the other side, the road snaking in the green of fir and spruce, turning into a hill, a bit of snow skiffed in some places, then more, then everything coated, the evidence of a recent plow, the oil-and-gravel surface still ...2000, Roy Parvin, In the Snow Forest, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 30:
skiff
noun
1
An act of slightly pruning tea bushes, placing new leaves at a convenient height without removing much woody growth.
In the fourth year, "light skiff" pruning removes just the uppermost growth.2001, Piya Chatterjee, A Time for Tea: Women, Labor, and Post/Colonial Politics on an Indian Plantation, page 173:
The sequence of the 3-year pruning cycle is light pruning; light skiff; and deep skiff[…]2019, Mirza Hasanuzzaman, Agronomic Crops: Volume 1: Production Technologies, Springer, page 463:
skiff
verb
1
To cut (a tea bush) to maintain the plucking table.
Skiffing is the lightest form of pruning involving as it does removal of a certain amount of growth above the previous pruning level.2016, H. Panda, The Complete Book on Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea (2nd Revised Edition), page 202: