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skimming

1 3.4

Brush lightly against something while passing by

noun
/ˈskɪmɪŋ/

: roce

He could feel the wind skimming across his face as he rode his bicycle down the hill.

Examples

My pressure is like the brush is skimming across my skin.
Now I'm really just skimming the brush and I'm not pressing it hard.
A mile or more round shot could be skipped across the sea, like skimming pebbles across a pond.
A mile or more round shot could be skipped across the sea like skimming pebbles across a pond.
With one last burst of energy, the stone leapt in a high fluid arc—the rock-skimming equivalent of a grace note.

Fiction book (1991)
She enjoyed the feeling of the waves skimming over her toes as she walked along the beach.
The bird was skimming just above the water, searching for fish to catch.

Synonyms

grazing

vsskimming

1 3.7

A light touch when something brushes past you

is limited to only lightly brushing rather than touching

Compounds

cream-skimming

Jargon

1 8.8

Choosing only the best or most valuable customers and leaving the rest

How Strong

scraping

1 4.4

rubbing

9 1.5

brushing

2 1.0

skimming

1 3.4

touching

9 2.5

Surface Forms

skimming singular

skimmings plural

Morphology

skimming = skim (transparent) = skim + ing

Gerund/nominalization from the sense 'move lightly across', which is a direct, literal use of the verb.

Etymology

Skimming comes from an old idea of moving lightly across a surface. That image explains the sense of a light touch or a brief brush as you pass by.