skivvy

plural skivvies · alternative skivvie · alternative skivy

1. datedA female domestic servant, especially one employed for menial work.

   And then Somerset looked at the boys′ skivvy, and saw a well set up young woman with a red round face, an angry face just then but underneath the anger a pleasant one.

   1974, Simon Raven, Bring Forth the Body: Alms for Oblivion, volume 3, published 2012, page 194

   2 more examples

   2002, Krzysztof Miklaszewski, George M. Hyde (translator, editor), Encounters with Tadeusz Kantor, page 143, The common skivvy from the mortuary clings immoveably to the priest′s bed, which is just as immoveably guarded by the grandmother, who drives her off with a chamberpot. The skivvy is the photographer′s widow, trying to take a picture.

   “[…]Yes, that was Mac′s Restaurant and I was a kitchen skivvy there, but amazingly, a kitchen skivvy who had actually written a poem. Oh it′s all a very long time ago, Theresa, and so much has happened since then.”

   2005, Jenny Telfer Chaplin, The Widow of Candleriggs, unnumbered page

2. slangVietnam WargovernmentA prostitute.
3. AustraliaNew ZealandUSA close-fitting, long-sleeved T-shirt with a rolled collar.

   I put my wetsuit and skivvy on a tree to dry, and laid out my other gear on some grass.

   1998, Tom Byron, The History of Spearfishing and Scuba Diving in Australia, page 191

   3 more examples

   Then dark blood squirts from a little hole in Sergeant Gerheim's chest. The red blood blossoms into his white skivvy shirt like a beautiful flower.

   1979, Gustav Hasford, The Short-Timers, New York: Bantam Books, published 1980, →ISBN, page 30

   ‘He looks so good. He shouldn′t be allowed to wear a black skivvy. Doesn′t he have the most amazing muscles?’

   2005, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big in This?, page 224

   The button-down shirts and plain coloured skivvies were replaced by beads, fringed shawls and loose fitting Asian-style tops.

   2006, Iain McIntyre, Tomorrow Is Today: Australia in the Psychedelic Era, 1966-1970, page 41

present singular third person skivvies · participle present skivvying · participle past skivvied · past skivvied · alternative skivvie · alternative skivy

1. intransitiveTo perform menial work; to do chores, like a servant.

   We went out by turns, or sent out the apprentices who skivvied for us, to fetch in roast pork […]

   1930, Owen Lattimore, chapter 1, in High Tartary, Boston: Little, Brown, page 9

   2 more examples

   ‘My mother was right. “It’ll take the war for the buggers to realize how important we are,” she used to say, “but as soon as Hitler hangs his clogs up we’ll be back skivvying and scurrying like there’s nothing in our heads.”’

   1985, Caryl Phillips, The Final Passage, London: Faber and Faber, page 174

   He saw no mother but a washerwoman at her skivvying and the dirt-faced children that would be clinging to her skirts.

   2001, Jamie O’Neill, At Swim, Two Boys, London: Scribner, Part 2, Chapter 13, p. 361