Meaning

verb work hastily or carelessly; deal with inadequately and superficially

verb limit in quality or quantity

verb subsist on a meager allowance

originPerhaps of North Germanic origin, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skimpijaną (“to skip, dance, gesture, mock”). Cognate with Icelandic skimpa (“to scoff at, scorn”), dialectal Swedish skimpa (“to skip, dance”), Faroese skumpa (“to shove, bump”), German schimpfen (“to grumble, scold”), Dutch schimpen (“to mock, make fun of, scold”). Possibly distantly related to change.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0