▪ I. skell north. dial. rare.
[a. ON. skel, = OE. scell shell n.]
A shell.
| c 1330 R. Brunne Chron. Wace (Rolls) 14683 Luytel notes þey toke, &..dide y[n] þe schelles [v.r. skellis] fyr & tunder. c 1440 York Myst. ii. 65 Þe see now will I set within..Othir fysch to flet with fyne, sum with skale and sum with skell. 1878 Dickinson Cumbld. Gloss. s.v., Borrowdale nuts hes thin skells. |
▪ II. skell, n.2 U.S. slang.
(skɛl)
[Of uncertain origin; perh. shortening of skeleton.]
In New York, a homeless person or derelict, esp. one who sleeps in the subway system.
| 1982 N.Y. Times Mag. 31 Jan. 21/3 Other New Yorkers live there [sc. the subway]..eating yesterday's bagels and sleeping on benches. The police in New York call such people ‘skells’. Ibid., These ‘skells’ are not merely down and out. Many are insane, chucked out of New York hospitals. 1988 Newsday (N.Y.) 22 Feb. 6 The delirious, crazy people whom cops call ‘skells’, the down-and-outs, the grungy and hopeless, garbage-heads who use any foreign substance known to man to alter reality. |
▪ III. skell
variant of scale n.4