Meaning

noun a thin layer covering the surface of a liquid

noun reading or glancing through quickly

verb travel on the surface of water

originFrom Middle English skemen, skymen, variants of scumen, from Old French escumer (“to remove scum”), from escume (“froth, foam”), from Frankish *skūm (“froth, foam”), from Proto-Germanic *skūmaz (“foam”), from Proto-Indo-European *skew- (“to cover, conceal”). See scum.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0