ne'er-do-well vs skiver

ne'er-do-well

noun
  • A person without a means of support; an idle, worthless person; a loafer; a person who is ineffectual, unsuccessful, or completely lacking in merit; a good-for-nothing. 

  • A person who is up to no good; a rogue. 

adj
  • Showing the characteristics of a ne'er-do-well: indolent, worthless, or roguish. 

skiver

noun
  • A truant; one who is absent without permission, especially from school. 

  • The cutting tool or machine used in splitting leather or skins. 

  • One who uses a skive (or skives). 

  • An inferior quality of leather, made of split sheepskin, tanned by immersion in sumac, and dyed, formerly used for hat linings, pocketbooks, bookbinding, etc. 

  • A slacker. 

  • A skewer. 

verb
  • To skewer, impale. 

How often have the words ne'er-do-well and skiver occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )