skins

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of skin.

   The tannery processed hundreds of cattle skins each week.

   Grape skins give red wine much of its color.

   Note

   A regular plural, but which skin it means depends on the sense. The covering of a body or a fruit is normally uncountable, so the plural means the skins of several animals or fruits: cattle skins, grape skins. The countable senses pluralize freely: hides used for clothing, films on cooling liquids, interface themes, alternate looks for game characters. The same spelling serves the present-tense verb, as in she skins the fish.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of skin.

   The chef skins the fish with a single smooth stroke.

   A hunter usually skins the deer soon after the kill.

   Note

   Mostly a transitive verb, so it wants an object: a cook skins a fish, a fall skins a knee. Colloquially, someone skins a computer program by giving it a new look, and in British usage a player skins a defender by tricking a way past. Without an object it describes a surface becoming covered with skin, so a wound that skins over is healing.

3. 3
   nounslangplural

   The drums of a kit, played as part of a band or ensemble.

   The drummer attacked the skins with ferocious energy during the solo.

   You can hear the skins driving the rhythm beneath the guitar.

   Similardrums

   Note

   Musicians' slang that is always plural and nearly always takes the: nobody plays a skin. It fits the bandstand habit of naming who is on which instrument. Chester B. Himes in 1973 imagines Art Blakey on the skins beside Mingus on the bass. Verbs of striking keep it company, as in whacking the skins. In formal writing about music, drums is the safer word.

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