Roger (and Joanna):

[I know just how Joanna feels -- I'd sworn to give up dictionaries for a
week, and not touch "skivvy" again with a barge-pole, but ... ]

> The Compact OED (and why they call it that is 'obscure' to me, since I
need
> both hands to lift it and even then I'm struggling) gives, apart from
rather
> a lot on the basic verbal meaning, which is to do with shaving leather
> apparently,

Joanna pushed this further than I did originally, but going back to it ...

Unless I've tripped here (entirely possible) the OED2(3) deals with SKIVVY
n1 (servant girl) and SKIVVY n2 (vest, undershirt) separately from:

SKIVE n2,  "The surface part of a sheet of leather cut off by a
skiving-machine; a skiver"
SKIVE v1, "trans. To split or cut (leather, rubber, etc.) into slices or
strips; to shave or pare (hides)"
SKIVER n2, "1. A thin kind of dressed leather split from the grain side of a
sheep-skin and tanned in sumach, used for bookbinding, lining hats, and
other commercial purposes. /    2. One who or that which skives; esp. a
workman who pares or splits leather"

So a link between the two -- skivvy and skive(r), while possible, would be
an inference.

Both SKIVE and SKIVER predate SKIVVY, but I'm inclined to feel the meaning
(shaving leather) is too particular to lead onto SKIVVY.

SKIVE n3 and SKIVER n3 (which had crossed my mind earlier, but I hadn't
chased) -- "shirker" -- are both given by the OED as occurring for the first
time in the mid20thC.  (Though Cassell/Slang gives 1910+, no citations,
which would put their first-use in the same time-frame as "skivvy".  Nothing
on this in Partridge, either HS or DU, though -- pace dave!  -- Partridge in
HS does define "skivvy" as 'A maid servant, esp. [sic!] a rough GENERAL".)

[HEY!!! Just checked, and the Updated Patridge is FINALLY out!!!

A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English
David Crystal (Foreword), et al
Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd
Paperback - 26 September, 2002
Usually dispatched within 24 hours

Our Price: £25.00  ]

_Concise Scots Dictionary_ is much the same pattern, plus "SKIVE -- roam or
prowl about / SKIVER -- a prowler."

... and also has: SKIVIE see SKAVE.  SKAVE -- over to one side, off the
straight;  hairbrained, daft, mentally deranged.

This is Joanna's:

> The other is an adjective, 'skivie', Scottish but (again!) of obscure
> derivation, though the rubric refers us to ON 'skeifr', meaning 'askew'.
No
> date given as such, but Sir Walter Scott used it. It means 'harebrained,
> mentally deranged'.

But I'm dubious of a connection between any of the +meanings+ of SKIVE (and
its variants) as particularly relevant, except as perhaps exerting some kind
of phonaesthetic pressure on "slavey".

But that would bring us back to the skivvy/slavey link that Christopher
originally rejected.

dave's memories of old servants pronouncing the term as "slavi" (vowel as in
"cat") pushes the pronunciation of "skivvy" closer to "slavey" than the
current pronunciation suggests.

Also there's +such+ a strong semantic overlap between "slavey" (first
recorded c. 1810) and "skivvy" (1902+), that it seems odd that the two words
coexist.  And as far as I can make out, apart from a short period, they
don't -- "skivvy" directly replaces "slavey".

So what I'd currently suggest is that "skivvy" DOES derive from "slavey",
possibly with the various forms of "skive" exerting pressure to shift the
"l" to "k".

slavey (vowel as in "slay") --> "slavi" (vowel as in "cat") --> skavvi
(ditto) --> skivvy (scha).

OK, there are about twenty unjustified leaps there ...  And as to WHY the
"new" term should come in at 1902 (or at all) ...

I feel a bit skave at the moment myself -- hairbrained and mentally
deranged.

Robin

(Joanna -- thanks for all your comments -- much more interesting than the
stuff I've managed to dig out of the distionaries.

R.)

> Either of these two meanings could possibly have connection to 'skivvy' in
> the Edwardian sense of 'scullerymaid' (note sex!). They were often very
> young girls, hired for cheapness to do the rough and dirty working,
> scrubbing and so on, and so would move quickly - at least at first! My own
> grandmother was sent away from home to just such a position just after
1890,
> aged around 9 or 10 - her mother couldn't remember her exact age. Granny
> used to call herself a skivvy when she talked about it afterwards, but of
> course she could have been using a newer word for the same thing.
>
> The 'mentally deranged' angle is as likely here. Dull repetitive tasks
> within their capabilities, bed and board, and the housekeeper to ensure
they
> didn't get up to mischief, i.e. breeding and passing on the 'bad blood' -
it
> would have been seen as charitable, and never mind the conditions. In
fact,
> when adult they'd be more useful than the children, being stronger.
>
> Don't know if this is of help? or at least of interest? It is so
infuriating
> not to know these things. You rotten lot - I've been perfectly happy all
my
> life not having thought to wonder, and now it's like a stone in my shoe.
Let
> me know if anyone comes up with anything more feasible, or even correct.