skim someone/something off

skim | American Dictionary

skim
verb
us/skɪm/-mm-

skimverb (MOVE ABOVE)

[ I/T ]
to move quickly just above or on a surface, or to cause something to move above or on a surface:
[ I ]Skaters skim over the ice.
[ T ]I skimmed a pebble across the lake.

skimverb (READ QUICKLY)

[ I/T ]
to read or look at something quickly to understand the main points, without studying it in detail:
[ T ]You can’t just skim the tax forms.
[ I ]Skim through this report.

skimverb (REMOVE)

[ T ]
to remove something solid from the surface of a liquid:
Stew the chicken, then skim the fat.

skim | Business English

skim
verb[ T ]
uk /skɪm/us-mm-(alsoskim off)
FINANCE, TAX
to steal money from an account, budget, etc. over a period of time in amounts that cannot be easily noticed:
skim sth from sthThe defendants were accused of skimming money from a multimillion-dollar construction project.
During the lifetime of their company the defendants skimmed off more than €5.5 million.
IT
to steal someone's credit card details using electronic equipment, in order to use their account illegally:
More than $98m of total bank fraud was taken by criminals using bank cards that had been skimmed.
 skim the market
MARKETING
to charge a high price for a new product in order to make as much profit as possible before other similar products become available and prices fall:
Marketers might choose to skim the market to position their brand as a luxury good.

Examples of skim

skim
The extensive chapter on abolition, for example, skims over modes of liberation, the roles of families and post-liberation livelihoods.
As such, the volume leaves the reader seeking more explanation on some topics while skimming through other areas explored too deeply.
Yet, some authors briefly skimmed through theories and concepts, and risked over-simplification.
It is not known how much free skimmed milk was distributed through the normal channels in the district.
All of the tainted powdered skim milk was used exclusively as a manufacturing ingredient.
This is very true, but the observation only skims the surface of the debate.
Politicians who support collective bargaining with laws and other services skim off their share of the rent in the form of campaign contributions.
It is simply that the lightness of touch of the prose enables one to skim rapidly from page to page.
Inquiries in 1966 and early 1967 indicated that children entitled to free skimmed milk were receiving about one-third of their full allowance during that period.
Consequently, the reader may prefer to skim this section, consider the examples and then reread this section in greater depth later.
The sutures skimmed through the upper part of the bundle.
I think that the millions who read them - or more probably skim over them - are anaesthetised by what they semi-read.
It can be skipped or skimmed on a first reading.
However, the transportation costs of liquid feedstuffs such as whey, buttermilk or skim milk have to be kept within reasonable limits.
They will have the special pleasure of being aloft, skimming the under-surface of the luminous veil.
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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.