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Glite Dictionary
🥄 To remove from top 🏆 To take the best
to skim off

to skim off

1 4.6
Take the best people or things from a group, leaving the rest behind
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : seleccionar
  • The manager decided to skim off the top performers from the team for the special project.
  • skimmed money off the top

So from that I'd scoop, skim off the top, the very, very best ones, brief them up and say to the mums and dads, I'm fighting, your guys have got potential.

Examples

  • There will be the powerful and the greedy and the bureaucrats that take advantage of it, skim off the top kind of thing.

  • This then forces the middle class into debt slavery and effectively operates as a siphon to skim off excess wealth from the working class.

    Blog text (1)

  • So from that I'd scoop, skim off the top, the very, very best ones, brief them up and say to the mums and dads, I'm fighting, your guys have got potential.

    Dodge Woodall

  • During the selection process, the committee will skim off the most qualified applicants for interviews.

  • It's common for successful companies to skim off the best talents from their competitors.

Synonyms

to select
vsto skim off
823 2.5

To choose someone or something from a group

involves removing top choices from the larger group
to cherry-pick
vsto skim off
  • Informal
23 6.3

To choose only the best people or things for yourself

is the act of taking top items while leaving others behind
to winnow
vsto skim off
8 8.3

To choose the most important parts from a larger group

is the action of taking those chosen elements away from others
to pick over
vsto skim off
2 3.6

To look through items carefully to choose the best or remove bad ones

is the removal of chosen items from the rest
to cull out
vsto skim off
1 7.1

To choose the best items from a larger group and remove them

is about taking the chosen items away, leaving the remainder
to cream off
vsto skim off
7.2

To take the best people or things from a group for themselves

is similar but focuses on removing top items from a group
to cream the crop
vsto skim off
  • Informal
8.5

To choose the best people or things from a group

is about taking top items away and leaving the rest behind
to cream-skim
vsto skim off
  • Jargon
7.8

To take only the best or most profitable choices and leave others behind

means taking top options and abandoning less desirable ones

Antonyms

to include
∞ 1.0

To make a person or thing part of something larger

to retain
60 3.0

To hold something inside so it does not escape

How Selective

to handpick
4 3.7
to skim off
1 4.6
to select
823 2.5
to choose
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

skim off infinitive
skimmed off past
skimmed off past participle
skimming off present participle
skims off third person singular

Morphology

skim + off

The literal verb 'skim' (to lift off surface material) plus 'off' (to remove) transparently indicates removing the top layer, and the MWE extends this to taking the top/best items from a group. However, this is a metaphorical extension (abstracting from a physical action to selecting people/things), so the exact sense may not be fully predictable to a B1 learner without exposure.

Etymology

Skim off uses the same image: imagine cream rising to the top of milk and being taken away with a spoon, so the best or richest part is removed first. That's why it means 'to take the best people or things from a group, leaving others behind'.