six, small beer; sold at 6s. a barrel; ‘A cup of six’, Rowley, A Match at Midnight, i. 1 (Tim).
six and seven, to set all on, ‘to risk all one’s property on the hazard of the dice; Omnem iacere aleam, to cast all dice, . . . to set al on sixe and seuen, and at al auentures to ieoperd’, Udall, tr. of Apoph., Julius, § 7; ‘Or wager laid at six and seven’, Butler, Hud. iii. 1. 588.
skails, a game like ninepins; the same as ‘kails’. ‘Aliossi, a play called Nine pins or keeles, or skailes’, Florio (1598); North, tr. of Plutarch, Alcibiades, § 1. See NED. (s.v. Skayles).
†skainsmate. Only occurs as spoken by the Nurse in Romeo, ii. 4. 163, ‘Scurvy Knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of his skainsmates’. The nurse was no very correct speaker, and in the heat of her anger she has in this case become wholly unintelligible. The guesses of the commentators and glossarists are devoid of probability.
skeen, a knife. Merry Devil, ii. 2. 54; skeane, Spenser, State of Ireland (Globe ed., p. 631); skene, Brewer, Lingua, i. 1 (first stage-direction). Also skaine, Drayton, Pol. iv. 384. In prov. use in Scotland and Ireland, see EDD. (s.v. Skean). Sc. and Ir. Gaelic, sgian, a knife.
skelder, to beg impudently by false representations, to swindle (Cant). B. Jonson, Poetaster, i. 1 (Luscus); ib. (Tucca); iii. 1 (Tucca); Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Moll).
skellet, a ‘skillet’, a small pot or pan; a small kettle. Skelton, El. Rummyng, 250; skillet, Othello, i. 3. 273. ‘Skellet’ (also ‘skillet’), a small metal pan or saucepan, is in gen. prov. use in the British Isles and America, see EDD. (s.v. Skillet).
skellum; see [schellum].
skelp, to strike with the hand, to smack; ‘I shall skelp thee on the skalpe’, Skelton, Magnyfycence, 2207. In gen. prov. use in the British Isles; in England in the north and Midland counties, see EDD. (s.v. Skelp, vb.1). ME. skelpe, to smite with a scourge (Wars Alex. 1924).
skew at, to look askance at, to slight. Beaumont and Fl., Loyal Subject, ii. 1 (Putskie); ‘To skewe, limis oculis spectare’, Levins, Manip. ‘To skew’ is in prov. use in the north of England in the sense of to look askance at any one, see EDD. (s.v. Skew, vb.1 18).