skin job n. 1

a skin transplant (esp. for the purpose of changing or concealing one’s identity); cosmetic surgery performed on the skin

[after nose job (1947 in OED)]

  • 1958 R. Sheckley Time Killer in Galaxy Nov. 108/1 page image Robert Sheckley bibliography

    Man I know, his dead mother-in-law tracked him down through three aliases, a Transplant and a complete skin job.

  • 1979 J. Varley Wizard (1986) 35 page image John Varley

    I like to get a three- or four-day skin job as much as the next person, but I get tired of it.

  • 1990 D. Powell Flay Acting in Punch 21 Nov. 45/1 page image

    Remember, he is still brilliant; he gets back to the skin job and makes a very presentable version of his old face.

  • 1997 G. Charnock Night on Bare Mountain in D. Garnett New Worlds 391 Graham Charnock bibliography

    Venn managed to crawl away, but the kids caught him and torched him…. When the judgement in the civil suit came in, most of it went to pay for Venn’s skin-job.

  • 2000 J. Hawkins Cutting Edge: Art Horror & the Horrific Avant Garde 80

    In Les yeux sans visage, female identity is a medical construction, as essential and fragile as the surgical ‘skin job’ that creates it.

  • 2018 A.-T. Castro Stab of the Knife in Analog Science Fiction & Fact July–Aug. 22/1 Adam-Troy Castro bibliography

    She’s had a cosmetic skin job, too, apparently to accentuate the impression she already gives of a person one should not, under any circumstances, mess with. It has given her blockish features a bright and metallic gold tint.

Research requirements

antedating 1958
Research History
Suggested, and several cites supplied by, Bill Mullins.

Last modified 2021-08-09 15:05:04
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.