Definition of "skip"

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, / Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?

1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: Printed for J[ohn] Wilford, […]

So she drew her mother away skipping, dancing, and frisking fantastically.

1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 10, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields

The hosts maintained their discipline and shape, even threatening to grab a second goal on the break - left-back Dan Harding made a scintillating run, skipping past a few challenges before prodding a right-footed shot that did not match his build-up.

2011 January 29, Ian Hughes, “Southampton 1 - 2 Man Utd”, in BBC‎

After Essien's poor attempt flew into the stands, Rodrigo Moreno - Bolton's on-loan winger from Benfica who was making his full Premier League debut - nearly exposed the Blues with a lovely ball for Johan Elmander, but it just skipped away from his team-mate's toes.

2010 December 29, Chris Whyatt, “Chelsea 1 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC‎

But they who have not this doubt, and have a mind to see the issue of the Theory, may skip these two Chapters, if they please, and proceed to the following

1684-1690, Thomas Burnet, Sacred Theory of the Earth

I see ya' little speed boat head up our coastShe really want to skip townGet back off me, beast off meGet back you flea-infested mongrel

1998, Baha Men, Who Let the Dogs Out?

Tracking down debtors is a big part of a skip tracer's job. That's the case because deadbeats who haven't paid their bills and have disappeared are the most common type of skips.

2012, Susan Nash, Skip Tracing Basics and Beyond, page 19

Beside it was a great engine which worked a continuous steel rope on which the skips were fastened which drew up the débris by successive stages from the bottom of the shaft.

1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed‎

Effie: How did you find the second, the defacto, and what nationality is she? / Barber: She is Australian. / Effie: Is she? Gone for a skip. You little radical you.

2001, Effie (character played by Mary Coustas), Effie: Just Quietly (TV series), Episode: Nearest and Dearest

Behind the Counter stood a complaisant Spark, who I observ'd shew'd as much Breeding in the sale of a Penny-worth of Tobacco, and the change of a Shilling, as a Courtier's Footman when he meets his Brother Skip in the middle of Covent-Garden; and is so very dexterous in discharge of his Occupation, the he guesses from a Pound of Tobacco to an Ounce to the certainty of one Corn […]

1703, Edward Ward, The London-spy Compleat, 5th edition, volume 1, part 7, published 1713, page 157

He constitutes, probably, the identical exception which Sir Boyle Roche had in his mind's eye, when he broached his famous problem, that "a man cannot be in two places at once, barring he is a bird." The skip, or according to the Oxford etymology, the man-vulture, is not fit for his calling who cannot time his business so as to be present simultaneously at several places. He must be at Kinshan's on Carlisle Bridge, for Mr. Moriarty's half-pound of tea, at the very moment that Sir Looby, in the Botany Bay Square, requires his three eggs; and the Billy Sheridan of the day is singing out, like Stentor, from the tiles and skylights of a coctile edifice beside the library, for the "lazy rascal!"

1842 October, Billy Sheridan, “Reminiscences of College Life”, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, page 682

His wounded tutor, his many duns, the skip and bed-maker who waited upon him, the undergraduates of his own time and the years below him, whom he had patronised or scorned—how could he bear to look any of them in the face now?

1849, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Flight after Defeat”, in The History of Pendennis