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Definition 2024


cleanskin

cleanskin

See also: clean skin

English

Noun

cleanskin (plural cleanskins)

  1. (Australia) An unbranded animal.
    • 1921, Joseph Furphy, Rigby′s Romance, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0607461h,
      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.
    • 1988, Tom Cole, **** West and Crooked:
      I started off lassoing the cleanskins, dragging them up bellowing to the bronco panel where they were quickly leg-roped, thrown and branded.
    • 1995, Darrell Lewis & Charles Schultz, Beyond the Big Run, p. 96:
      The bullocks would be in the lead and you'd whip in and let the bullocks go to ****, but hang to your cleanskins as much as you could.
  2. Someone with no prior criminal record, a person with no previous convictions; loosely, someone who has not done anything wrong before, an unblemished character.
    • 2007, Poul Anderson, Shocking Australian True Crime Stories, page 169,
      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.
    • 2010, Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian, 19 Apr 2010:
      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.
  3. (Australia, New Zealand) An unlabelled bottle of wine.
    • 2010, Teresa Ooi, The Australian, 16 Apr 2010:
      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.
    • 2010, Terry Lee Stone, Managing the Design Process Implementing Design: An Essential Manual for the Working Designer, page 47,
      In 2009, Back Label commissioned Voice to design a label for its cleanskin.
    • 2011, Craig Sherborne, The Amateur Science of Love, p. 64:
      My eye-whites still woke up bright and clear despite the night before's two bottles of cheap cleanskin wine.
  4. An undercover police officer who has not done a particular task before.
  5. (cricket) A cricket bat with no maker's logo

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