Definition of "skiff"
skiff1
skiff2
noun
plural skiffs
A light, fleeting shower of rain or snow, or gust of wind, etc.
Quotations
A lashing skiff of rain sheeted across the desert, a gift from the heavens that cooled my skin and allowed some color to return to the world. It was enough to combat the smell of creosote, but not enough to sustain the land, so the desert lay back ...
2019, Craig Johnson, Depth of Winter: A Longmire Mystery, Penguin Books, page 246
A (typically light) dusting of snow or ice (or dust, etc) (on ground, water, trees, etc).
Quotations
Bring a natural-looking touch of snow indoors by using your fingertips to lightly spread White Christmas Snow along the tops of the branches on your Christmas tree. To create a light skiff of snow on a six-foot noble fir, double the recipe.
1999, Sara Perry, Christmastime Treats: Recipes and Crafts for the Whole FamilyA Holiday Celebrations Book, Chronicle Books
It was getting time to start trapping and Hawk was getting anxious. Fall was everywhere from the yellow aspens, to the skiff of ice on the beaver ponds in the morning. Elk could be heard bugling up and down the valley […]
2001, Wayde Bulow, Lure of the Mountains: The Frontier Life of a Mountain Man, iUniverse, page 176
... the shore of Pontchartrain, dripping blood heavily into the inland sea, and watching as a crystal path hurtled forward across the lake, six feet wide, as thin as the skiff of ice on a basin left in the window on the night of the first freeze of autumn.
2004, Orson Scott Card, The Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Tor Books, page 116
Later, she'd seen the snow on Saint Lawrence Island, the snow on the Olympics, the powder high in the Cascades, the Brooks Range, the Maine snow, the Rocky Mountain snow, the blowing around high plains snow, the deep snow at her home in Idaho, the hushed snow in the boreal forest of Northern Canada, the sea-driven snow at Prince Ruper and Ketchikan, Nome, Kotzebue, and Valdez, snow in the Arctic adhering to the now vanishing ice, the dry skiff of snow on the Alaskan tundra stitched by the silvery, needle-like oil pipeline.
2014, John Keeble, The Shadows of Owls: A Novel, page 362
A thick skiff of snow lay over the world, and the big stars looked down on the weirdly wild scene. A long howl quivered through the night. It was quickly answered by a wild ululation from all directions. A big wolf—a fierce lobo of the Texas frontier—slipped out of the brush […]
2016, Glenn Dromgoole, West Texas Stories, ACU Press
It will grow almost anywhere it can get a toehold; I once saw rye growing in a 0.4-inch (1 cm)-deep skiff of dust on a tractor blade. Farmers call these unplanned plants “volunteers,” and you can sometimes see them […]
2020, Lew Bryson, Whiskey Master Class: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Scotch, Bourbon, Rye, and More, Harvard Common Press, page 57
verb
third-person singular simple present skiffs, present participle skiffing, simple past and past participle skiffed
(dialectal, of rain or snow) To fall lightly or briefly, and lightly cover the ground (etc).
Quotations
He crossed a bridge to the other side, the road snaking in the green of fir and spruce, turning into a hill, a bit of snow skiffed in some places, then more, then everything coated, the evidence of a recent plow, the oil-and-gravel surface still ...
2000, Roy Parvin, In the Snow Forest, W. W. Norton & Company, page 30
“I don't mind waiting with you.” “No, it's all right.” “Really?” “Really.” Reluctantly, Paul said goodbye. Walking in the face of skiffing rain he was almost past the kebab shop before he realised it. “Donner kebab,” Paul said as if it was a refrain.
2009, John Morgan, Giddyblue, Chipmunkapublishing ltd, page 143
In others, you could see all the way through to the basement stairway below. All the doors on the second floor had been torn from their hinges. The wind blew in through the empty windows, skiffing snow In one room a rotting mattress had been ...
2009, Kent Nerburn, The Wolf at Twilight: An Indian Elder's Journey Through a Land of Ghosts and Shadows, New World Library, page 267