skilly meaning (obsolete): definition, etymology and quotations

skilly

noun

UK /ˈskɪli/

Etymology Shortening.

“I would be given for supper six ounces of bread and ‘three parts of skilly.’ ‘Three parts’ means three-quarters of a pint, and ‘skilly’ is a fluid concoction of three quarts of oatmeal stirred into three buckets and a half of hot water.”1903, Jack London, The People of the Abyss, Macmillan:
Of course unlike the officers we never got fresh bread, we got what came from barrels stored in the lower peak and under the steward's padlock. Pantiles baked brick hard, mouldy oats for skilly, dried peas for soup, embalmed pork and beef more fat and bone than meat.2013, Wayne Ward, Old Union, page 168:

adj

Etymology From Middle English skylly, skily, equivalent to skill + -y.

So, being a fell impatient man, and skilly with his hands, he took Sam Gourlay a clout in the lug that couped him down in the stour […]1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 80: