(n.) The iron lap used by diamond polishers in finishing the facets of the gem.
(v. t.) To pare or shave off the rough or thick parts of (hides or leather).
Example Sentences:
(1) In so far as can be gleaned , the 120,000 families whose feral ways Mr Pickles and the prime minister like pointing to were totted up using outdated surveys concerned not with the school skiving, crime and loutishness that dominated yesterday's spin.
(2) The play opens with a scene where nosey neighbours spot someone on sickness benefit in the street and assume they must be skiving instead of working.
(3) Perhaps the culprit was skiving off the wedding of a despised but vengeful cousin when he posted.
(4) Are we salt of the earth yeomen, or skiving thickos milking the system, or drains on the already stretched infrastructure?
(5) Are workers seen as a burden, a cost, people who would rather skive and shirk responsibilities, and who have to be supervised rigorously at all times?
(6) The medial heel skive technique involves selectively removing small amounts of the medial portion of the plantar heel of the positive cast of the foot to create a unique varus wedging effect within the heel cup of the foot orthosis.
(7) I was doing a lot of skiving and was put on report for a while.
(8) From the start of his tenure, Wilshaw had a habit of making comments that shocked people: accusing teachers of skiving off at 3pm , saying “bad parents” should be fined.
(9) When my mother dropped by her boss's flat to persuade her to come to a rally that had been organised in downtown Reykjavik, she was assuaging her guilt from skiving off work by baking furiously.
(10) The leading edge of the bar must be properly skived and tapered to provide an even surface with the forward part of the soles of the shoes.
(11) There was anger at Duncan Smith’s mantra that he was ending the “something for nothing culture”, and the subtext that people who tried to claim sickness benefits were skiving.
(12) The Kaastrup Plant near Skive was opened in spring 1986.
(13) Sure, it was holiday-time: daily matches, skiving from work, the cities aglitter with flags and foreigners.
(14) Christopher Millross says: "I'll be skiving but only whilst still in the office as our boss is a power-crazed inadequacy-riddled fool who can't bare to think he's not in control for ninety minutes."
(15) 10.45am: So, two questions: 1) Are any office-based readers either a) being allowed to getting out of work to watch the England (or indeed USA) match, or b) planning to skive off this afternoon?
(16) Amino acid analysis of the alpha-globins of "Skive" Danish Mus musculus musculus (Hbaw3) establishes that its hemoglobin is comprised of about one-third alpha chain 2 as expected plus a greater amount of a unique alpha chain that has not been described previously.
(17) A monologue lets us in on his thoughts – about the joy of skiving school and chasing the sun round the sky.
(18) They skive off to the loo for a sneaky fag, and return grinning.
Skiver
Definition:
(n.) An inferior quality of leather, made of split sheepskin, tanned by immersion in sumac, and dyed. It is used for hat linings, pocketbooks, bookbinding, etc.
(n.) The cutting tool or machine used in splitting leather or skins, as sheepskins.
Example Sentences:
(1) Part of that must be down to the way the language of welfare reform is surreptitiously laced with innuendo about scroungers and skivers.
(2) They say: "While the chancellor paints a picture of so-called 'strivers' and 'skivers', our organisations see the reality on the ground: families scraping by in low-paid work, or being bounced from insecure jobs to benefits and back again."
(3) Political rhetoric now as in Orwell's day exploits not only euphemism ("austerity") but dysphemism ("skivers") and loaded metaphor ("fiscal cliff"): in our time, weaponised soundbites are deliberately engineered to smuggle the greatest amount of persuasion into the smallest space, to be virally replicated on rolling news.
(4) To justify the cuts, the Tories are likely to employ a narrative of skivers v strivers, suggesting a clear division between a large, permanently welfare-dependent group and the rest of the population who pay taxes to support it.
(5) "Our clients don't appreciate being put in that scroungers and skivers bracket, because they are trying to break out of unemployment."
(6) Skiver” and “scrounger” bashing has had very real consequences.
(7) Skivers, on the other hand, are lazy, unreliable and manipulative, choosing to live at others' expense so that they can sleep, watch television, abuse various substances and fritter away their time.
(8) We're told that the cost of housing benefit is out of control and is because of welfare scroungers and skivers, when the truth is that it is out of control because 10,000 new working households every month have to make a claim as rents keep going up and up while wages are static or fall.
(9) A lot of his constituents felt that they were "being branded as skivers" and "demonised by the system", he said.
(10) Or in the parlance of the moment, "the strivers" v "the skivers".
(11) However, the government’s constant attempts to paint honest people – like low-paid workers relying on tax credits and universal credit – as ‘skivers’ is creating a hostile and accusatory environment.
(12) In George Osborne's dichotomy of strivers versus skivers, they fall on the government-approved side.
(13) Meanwhile, at the launch of a report on poverty published by the Church in Wales and Oxfam Cymru on Tuesday, the archbishop led calls for citizens to question false stereotypes of those in poverty as shirkers and skivers.
(14) And the most insidious myth, increasingly pervasive, is that the poor are workshy , scrounging out chaotic lives in a nation where strivers are paying their taxes for skivers.
(15) Cruel, too, has been the language of "strivers" v "skivers" , which has framed much of the debate around the welfare benefits uprating (more accurately downrating) bill, which recently completed its passage through parliament.
(16) The ground has been well prepared by the government's divisive narrative that separates the population into two opposing camps: strivers and skivers.
(17) You’re trying to get on in life, this narrative goes, but Labour is championing “skivers” or foreigners instead.
(18) Moreover the demonising division of the world into strivers and skivers belies the constant movement in and out of work at the bottom of an insecure labour market.
(19) Britain has been through six years of austerity and nastiness, in which disabled people have had their benefits cut and been labelled by ministers as skivers.
(20) To recap: as a desperate Conservative party scrabbles around for anything approaching a sense of purpose, David Cameron and George Osborne are sounding ever more shrill about the supposed divide between "workers" and "shirkers", or "strivers" and "skivers"; and this latest proposal is aimed at alchemising popularity from prejudice by capping most working-age benefits – including tax credits – at 1% a year until 2015, severing the link between social security (can we use that term, rather than that ideologically loaded US import "welfare"?)