SKIVING Synonyms: 25 Similar and Opposite Words

skiving

verb

present participle of skive

as in whittling

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for skiving

Verb

The film eventually ballooned to six hours before Gibney began whittling it back.

— Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 6 Oct. 2026
Voters set up races for four Orange County commission seats in November by whittling casts of candidates to two in districts 2, 6, 7 and 8.

— Stephen Hudak, The Orlando Sentinel, 19 Aug. 2026

Definition of whittling

Verb

After finally shaving his beard off, Colbert concluded the interview by gifting Kimmel something special from his show.

— Abid Rahman, HollywoodReporter, 16 Sep. 2026
Colbert had no hesitation about taking the tool to his facial hair, shaving it off and returning to his recognizable clean-shaven look.

— Michelle Lee, PEOPLE, 16 Sep. 2026

Definition of shaving

Verb

As a member of the mint family, horehound has the tendency to spread aggressively, but this can be prevented by shearing the inconspicuous flowers, which is also done to expose the evergreen foliage.

— Nadia Hassani, The Spruce, 6 Sep. 2026
Cut individual branches rather than shearing the shrub like a hedge.

— Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 31 Aug. 2026

Definition of shearing

Verb

Big companies like UnitedHealth Group, Humana, and others are chasing higher profits by pruning benefits, after investors grew dissatisfied with margins that were smaller than the insurers had promised.

— Bob Herman, STAT, 1 Oct. 2026
Pruning ‘Kaleidoscope’ Abelia ‘Kaleidoscope’ Abelia naturally develops a low mounding crown that requires little pruning to maintain.

— Kim Toscano, Southern Living, 29 Sep. 2026

Definition of pruning

Verb

The sanctions are aimed at cutting the ICC off from the global financial system and include threats of punishment for countries that do business with the court.

— Susannah George, Washington Post, 9 Oct. 2026
The city faced a $1-billion budget shortfall in 2025 but, after various cost-cutting measures, managed to set aside funding for the LAPD to hire more than 500 new officers in the coming year.

— Sean Greene, Los Angeles Times, 9 Oct. 2026

Definition of cutting

Verb

Since their debut in 1986, American Girl has shrunk their historical line significantly–including paring down the traditional six-book set for each historical character into two streamlined texts.

— Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 5 Oct. 2026
Boeing shares were up as much as 3% in premarket trading before paring back some of those gains.

— Sawdah Bhaimiya, CNBC, 29 Sep. 2026

Definition of paring

Verb

Rather than trimming that weight, Fukushima's lab asked whether anything needed to be worn at all.

— New Atlas, New Atlas, 7 Oct. 2026
Spectator interference became the ruling, and Volpe was awarded an RBI double that scored Lombard from first base, trimming Tampa Bay's lead to 4-3.

— ABC News, ABC News, 7 Oct. 2026

Definition of trimming

Verb

The photo editing tools are also limited to basic actions like cropping and rotating.

— Jordan Minor, PC Magazine, 14 Sep. 2026
Meta released its Content Seal AI watermark recently, but Reuters found that simply cropping the images a bit would often eliminate the watermark.

— ArsTechnica, ArsTechnica, 29 July 2026

Definition of cropping

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

skives

skiving

skivvies

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“Skiving.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/skiving. Accessed 13 Oct. 2026.

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Synonyms of skiving

verb

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