skin a flint

English

Verb

skin a flint (third-person singular simple present skins a flint, present participle skinning a flint, simple past and past participle skinned a flint)

1. (hyperbolic, figurative) Go to great lengths to save or gain something, particularly money.
   • Fitzpatrick, Kathleen (1937) The Weans at Rowallan, →ISBN, page 54

     Deed, it wasn't Jane, for she just hates ye; she always says ye're an ould miser, an' ye'd skin a flint.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see skin,‎ a,‎ flint.
   • Miller, Thomas (1847) The Boy's Spring Book‎^[1], page 33

     The old women used to say that he would have skinned a flint to have saved a halfpenny, if he had spoilt a sixpenny knife in doing it.

Derived terms

• skinflint