skint

English

Etymology

The "penniless" sense is attested since 1925 and is derived from a variant of skinned

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skɪnt/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /skʌnt/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɪnt

Adjective

skint (comparative skinter or more skint, superlative skintest or most skint)

1. (slang, UK, Commonwealth, Ireland) Penniless, poor, impecunious, broke.
   • 2000, Tim Bradford, Is Shane MacGowan still alive?:

     There were a mixture of local people with cold, pinched faces and skint and harassed looking tourists sitting around fondling their itchsome facial hair, their tongues lolling into fizzy yellow pints of lager.

   • 2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

     Mr Grave proceeded to give a stern warning to those “errant pupils” who, against the rules, had been smuggling their mobile phones into school. This was just about everyone, though Zoe was far too skint to even dream of ever owning one.

2. (slang) skinned

Usage notes

• Cockney rhyming slang for skint is boracic lint, or just boracic. It is pronounced as brassic.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:impoverished

Derived terms

• skintly
• skintness

Translations

penniless, poor, impecunious, broke — see also broke,‎ impecunious

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 手頭緊 / 手头紧 (zh) (shǒutóujǐn), 手緊 / 手紧 (zh) (shǒujǐn), 沒錢 / 没钱 (zh) (méiqián)

• Dutch: aan den arme
• Finnish: auki (fi), rahaton (fi)
• German: abgebrannt (de), blank (de)
• Hungarian: szegény (hu), csóró (hu)
• Italian: al verde
• Polish: spłukany (pl)
• Serbo-Croatian: шворц (švorc), декинтиран m (dekintiran)

Anagrams

• knits, sinkt, snikt, stink, tinks

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

skint

1. past participle of skinne