skin
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The outer protective layer of the body of any animal, including of a human.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
skinIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈskɪn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
The outer protective layer of the body of any animal, including of a human.
countable
The skin and fur of an individual animal used by humans for clothing, upholstery, etc.
uncountable
The outer protective layer of the fruit of a plant.
countable
A congealed layer on the surface of a liquid.
A drink of whisky served hot.
Australia
A subgroup of Australian aboriginal people.
verb
Short for skin up ("travel uphill on skis, snowboard, or bicycle")
colloquial
To high five.
transitive
To injure the skin of.
transitive
To remove the skin and/or fur of an animal or a human.
intransitive
To become covered with skin or a skin-like layer.
transitive
To cover with skin, or as if with skin; hence, to cover superficially.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The outer protective layer of the body of any animal, including of a human.
Used this way, skin is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use skin
- “Your skin is the largest organ of your body.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Having skin of a specified kind.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Underwater swimming without any more breathing equipment than a snorkel.
An underwater swimmer equipped with a face mask and foot fins and either a snorkel or an air cylinder.
Underwater swimming without any more breathing equipment than a snorkel.
A doctor who specializes in the physiology and pathology of the skin.
The tendency of high-frequency alternating current to distribute near the surface of a conductor.
Eruption on the skin occurring as a symptom of a disease.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Care for the skin.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: outer protective layer of the body of any animal
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.