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cleanskin

noun
/ˈkliːnskɪn/

Etymology

From clean + skin.

  1. derived from *sken-✻ — “to split off”
  2. derived from *skinþą✻
  3. derived from skinn — “animal hide”
  4. inherited from scinn
  5. inherited from skyn
  6. compounded as cleanskin — “clean + skin”

Definitions

  1. An unbranded animal.

    • No one had any clear notion of how many head might be collected, but we counted on something over four hundred--possibly up to five hundred and fifty, including calves and cleanskins.
    • For here was an unoccupied area where cleanskins had made their home.
    • I started off lassoing the cleanskins, dragging them up bellowing to the bronco panel where they were quickly leg-roped, thrown and branded.

  2. A person who does not have any tattoos.

    • If you're under 18 in Victoria you must now remain a cleanskin. The Government has just passed a bill that minors must not be tattooed with or without their parent's consent.
    • Both men and women are tattooed, and so important are tattoos for traditional Samoans that it is impossible to serve or be apprenticed to a village leader if you are a cleanskin.
    • And it had been the witness ID of his tattoos that had sunk him. Now with a forged passport he was going back to the Continent a new man, if not a cleanskin.

  3. Someone with no prior criminal record, a person with no previous convictions

    Someone with no prior criminal record, a person with no previous convictions; loosely, someone who has not done anything wrong before, an unblemished character.

    • Ryan′s natural father was a cleanskin – a police term for a person with no criminal history – who found himself caught up in the world of career criminals when he married into The Clan.
    • So the only strategy likely to hurt Clegg in those circumstances involves arguing that the Lib Dems are part of the mould too – not cleanskins, but a party with 60-plus MPs in that last discredited parliament.
  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. An unlabelled bottle of wine.

      • Mr McKenzie said that two years ago a decent bottle of sauvignon blanc sold for $15 to $20, but today prices were down to $10 a bottle. "More cleanskins entering the market is the first indication there is too much SB out there," he said.
      • In 2009, Back Label commissioned Voice to design a label for its cleanskin.
      • My eye-whites still woke up bright and clear despite the night before's two bottles of cheap cleanskin wine.

    2. An undercover police officer who has not done a particular task before.

    3. A cricket bat with no maker's logo

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for cleanskin. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA