skin a flint

present singular third person skins a flint · participle present skinning a flint · participle past skinned a flint · past skinned a flint

1. excessivefigurativelyGo to great lengths to save or gain something, particularly money.

   Deed, it wasn't Jane, for she just hates ye; she always says ye're an ould miser, an' ye'd skin a flint.

   Fitzpatrick, Kathleen (1937), The Weans at Rowallan, page 54

   Synonyms: shave a nickel

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see skin, a, flint.

   The old women used to say that he would have skinned a flint to have saved a halfpenny, if he had spoilt a sixpenny knife in doing it.

   Miller, Thomas (1847), The Boy's Spring Book, page 33