skimmer
part of speech
noun (a skimmer, skimmers)
meaning for a pupil
1) A flat spoon or ladle with holes, used to lift things off the top of a liquid, like foam from soup. tree →
2) A seabird that flies low and skims fish from the water's surface with its long lower beak. tree →
3) A person or thing that skims, such as a stone that skips over water or a reader who reads quickly. tree →
4) A device that removes oil, leaves or dirt from the surface of water, for example in a pool or after an oil spill. tree →
5) (crime) A hidden device criminals fit to cash machines to steal card details. tree →
sense in the lessons
In cooking, a skimmer takes scum off jam or soup; in science and nature, skimmer birds and dragonflies (also called skimmers) live by water. In safety lessons on money, pupils learn that adults should cover the PIN and watch for skimmers on cash machines. In geography, skimmers clean up oil spills.
examples
- Grandma used a skimmer to take the foam off the jam. tree →
- The pool skimmer catches leaves before they sink. tree →
- A black skimmer flew low over the waves. tree →
- Ships used skimmers to clean up the oil spill. tree →
- Mum checks the cash machine for skimmers. tree →
- That flat stone is a great skimmer — it bounced five times! tree →
- Catskin told the cook how much she would like to go to the ball, the cook called her "a dirty slut," and broke the skimmer across her head. tree →
note
Countable; from «skim» (double m before -er). A skimming stone (UK) is a «skipping stone» in the USA.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «skimmer» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.