throw a sickie
English
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
Audio (AU): (file)
Verb
throw a sickie (third-person singular simple present throws a sickie, present participle throwing a sickie, simple past threw a sickie, past participle thrown a sickie)
- (slang, UK, Australia, New Zealand) To take a day off from work for ill health (either real or feigned).
- 1997, Nicholas Blincoe, Jello Salad[1], page 49:
- Hogie said, “Listen, I′m throwing a sickie. I don′t need to be there until opening day tomorrow. The staff don′t arrive till then anyway so as long as I'm in early I can′t see a problem.”
- 2005, Callum G. Brown, The Unconverted and the Conversion, Jan N. Bremmer, Wout J. van Bekkum, Arie L. Molendijk (editors), Paradigms, Poetics, and Politics of Conversion: Gender Relations in the Salvation Narrative in Britain: 1800-1960, page 190,
- It is like throwing a ‘sickie’ in Britain today — you can sign-off work on your own say-so for sick benefit for up to five days.
- 2011, Gererd Dixie, The Ultimate Teaching Manual: A Route to Success for Beginning Teachers[2], page 187:
- Do not ‘throw a sickie’ just because things get tough. Experience shows that running away from your problems will not solve anything.
Synonyms
- (claim a sick day): pull a sickie, see also Thesaurus:shirk
Translations
to feign illness so to take time off work
|