skill

Less common meanings

4. 4
   awesomeadjectiveslangUK

   Excellent or really impressive.

   The whole concert was skill from start to finish.

   My cousin's new trampoline is well skill; we spent the whole afternoon bouncing on it.

   UsageUsually after a verb (the gig was skill), often boosted with well: well skill.

   Similarbrilliant, excellent, awesome, amazing, wicked

   Oppositerubbish, awful, terrible, lame

   Note

   British slang praise, used much like brill or ace and often strengthened as well skill. It turns up in the letters pages and reviews of home-computer magazines such as Your Sinclair (1987) and Crash (1991), and it even takes a comparative, skiller.

5. 5
   nounobsoleteuncountable

   Knowledge or comprehension of a subject.

   And Howell Dha shall goodly well indew The salvage minds with skill of just and trew;

   1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

   'I kenna whatna man ye are,' he says, 'but ye have the skill of lassies' hearts. Tell me truly, is there no way to win her to common love?'

   1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

   Note

   Knowledge here means knowing about, not knowing how, and it often takes of where modern English would use in. Spenser writes of 'skill of just and trew', a knowledge of right and truth. Milton sets it beside craft in 'skill or art'. It lingers in dialect dialogue as late as John Buchan's The Outgoing of the Tide (1902): 'ye have the skill of lassies' hearts.'

6. 6
   nounobsoleteuncountable

   The faculty of discernment or sound judgment; a sense of what is proper or reasonable.

   Him so I sought, and so at last I fownd Where him that witch had thralled to her will, In chaines of lust and lewde desyres ybownd And so transformed from his former skill, That me he knew not, nether his owne ill;

   1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

   Note

   Closest to the discernment of the Norse word behind the modern 'ability' sense, this obsolete use names the mind's power to judge rightly. In King Lear the bewildered king says 'all the skill I have / Remembers not these garments': his reason fails him. Spenser's knight in The Faerie Queene is 'transformed from his former skill,' bewitched out of his right mind. Read it as 'judgment' or 'wits,' not 'ability.' Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • English skill derives from Old Norse skil, whose meanings include discernment. en.wiktionary.org
   • An obsolete sense of skill denotes judgment or reason. en.wiktionary.org
   • Lear speaks the quoted lines in King Lear, in a passage expressing confusion about his surroundings and mental condition. folger.edu
   • Spenser's quoted words describe a knight deprived of his understanding through enchantment. en.wikisource.org
7. 7
   verbarchaicintransitive

   To know or understand something, or to know how to do it.
8. 8
   matterverbarchaicintransitive

   To make a difference to a situation; to be significant or matter.

   But it skills not talking of it.

   1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance.

   What skills it, if a bag of stones or gold About thy neck do drown thee?

   1633, George Herbert, “The Church Porch”

   Note

   Making a difference is a kind of separating, and this archaic sense keeps that link. Its home is the impersonal phrase: 'it skills not' in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, 'What skills it' in George Herbert, and still 'it skills not talking of it' in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819). Use it only for period flavor. The everyday equivalent is it doesn't matter. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 7 facts

   • The sense meaning 'matter' retains a historical connection with separation. en.wiktionary.org
   • The impersonal fragment 'it skills not' occurs in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, spoken by the Clown. shakespeare.mit.edu
   • The quoted wording in Twelfth Night is exact. shakespeare.mit.edu
   • George Herbert uses 'What skills it' in The Church-porch. en.wikisource.org
   • The fragment 'it skills not talking of it' occurs in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, spoken by Athelstane. gutenberg.org
   • The quoted wording in Ivanhoe is exact. gutenberg.org
   • Ivanhoe was first published in 1819, although its title page bears 1820. en.wikipedia.org
9. 9
   verbarchaictransitive

   To set something apart; to separate it from others.

   Note

   The verb has its own history, apart from the noun. Old English scilian and Old Norse skilja, both meaning 'to divide, separate', came together in Middle English skilen. This sense keeps that original meaning intact. The verbs of discerning and knowing sit close beside it, since to discern is, at root, to tell apart. Noun and verb meet further back, in one root meaning 'to split, cut'. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 7 facts

   • The verb has a distinct immediate history: Middle English skilen derives partly from Old English scilian and partly from Old Norse skilja. en.wiktionary.org
   • Old English scilian meant to separate or part. en.wiktionary.org
   • Old Norse skilja meant to part, divide, or separate. en.wiktionary.org
   • The sense 'set apart; separate' preserves the ancestral meaning. en.wiktionary.org
   • Discerning and understanding were already related senses of the ancestral verb. en.wiktionary.org
   • Discern derives from a verb meaning to separate, divide, or distinguish. en.wiktionary.org
   • The noun and verb ultimately share the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)kelH-, meaning 'to split, cut'. en.wiktionary.org