skivvy
1 Americannoun
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Also called skivvy shirt. a man's cotton T-shirt.
-
skivvies, underwear consisting of cotton T-shirt and shorts.
-
a thin sweater with a round neck, usually worn over a blouse, turtleneck, or the like.
noun
verb (used without object)
noun
-
slang a man's T-shirt or vest
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slang (plural) men's underwear
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a garment resembling a sweater with long sleeves and a polo neck, usually made of stretch cotton or cotton and polyester and worn by either sex
noun
verb
Sensitive Note
This term is used with disparaging intent, implying the low rank of such a servant.
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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skivvysimple
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skivviessimple
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have skivviedperfect
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has skivviedperfect
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am skivvyingprogressive
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are skivvyingprogressive
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is skivvyingprogressive
-
have been skivvyingperfect progressive
-
has been skivvyingperfect progressive
Past
-
skivviedsimple
-
had skivviedperfect
-
was skivvyingprogressive
-
were skivvyingprogressive
-
had been skivvyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of skivvy1
First recorded in 1925–30; origin uncertain
Origin of skivvy2
First recorded in 1910–15; origin uncertain
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"I was grafting, picking up boxes, dreaming of being at an Olympic Games. I was doing the rubbish, delivering parts, just a skivvy job really," he said.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2021
You can vacuum pack clothing to save on space, or try the skivvy roll to pack your undies into a neat, sock-encased bundle.
From The Verge ● Aug. 25, 2017
She also spent five months on the revived Upstairs, Downstairs last year, playing scene-stealing kitchen skivvy Eunice.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 22, 2012
Central Park simmered in the noonday heat as Conductor Leonard Bernstein stripped to his skivvy shirt and led the New York Philharmonic through an alfresco rehearsal.
From Time Magazine Archive
But mostly, she was a maid, a skivvy and, in her hours off, a crammer of simple facts.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Waterman and swam in my skivvies in the San Gabriel River.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 29, 2025
And so the episode ends, with the actors Cosmo Jarvis and Hiroyuki Sanada leaping from the vessel in their skivvies, racing each other to shore.
From New York Times ● Mar. 5, 2024
Just past midnight on a cold, wet November night in 1904, 13-year-olds William Kiger and Albert Cook, wearing only their skivvies and chained together with ankle manacles, cradled the shackles to stop them clanking.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 29, 2022
He was among hundreds of fresh conscripts who stripped to their skivvies and stood in a quickly moving line to be inoculated.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 1, 2021
“Last week a band of antelopes came up to inspect our skivvies flapping in the breeze!”
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
Whatever skivvying or humble nursing she did, and however well or hard she did it, whatever illumination in tutorial she had relinquished, or lifetime moment on a college lawn, she would never undo the damage.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
