throw a sickie

present singular third person throws a sickie · participle present throwing a sickie · past threw a sickie · participle past thrown a sickie · alternative chuck a sickie

1. AustraliaNew ZealandUKslangTo take a day off from work for ill health (either real or feigned).

   Do not ‘throw a sickie’ just because things get tough. Experience shows that running away from your problems will not solve anything.

   2011, Gererd Dixie, The Ultimate Teaching Manual: A Route to Success for Beginning Teachers, page 187

   2 more examples

   Hogie said, “Listen, I′m throwing a sickie. I don′t need to be there until opening day tomorrow. The staff don′t arrive till then anyway so as long as I'm in early I can′t see a problem.”

   1997, Nicholas Blincoe, Jello Salad, page 49

   2005, Callum G. Brown, The Unconverted and the Conversion, Jan N. Bremmer, Wout J. van Bekkum, Arie L. Molendijk (editors), Paradigms, Poetics, and Politics of Conversion: Gender Relations in the Salvation Narrative in Britain: 1800-1960, page 190, It is like throwing a ‘sickie’ in Britain today — you can sign-off work on your own say-so for sick benefit for up to five days.

   Synonyms: pull a sickie