Well, that's how my mom used it--and she was most definitely US, not British--and it is also the title of a (very good) play by the very U.S. playwright, Thornton Wilder, "The Skin of Our Teeth," so it certainly is or has been used in the U.S. And yet, I've never heard it used myself, except by my mom and in that play. The point is, it's not CERTAINLY important for a foreign speaker to USE it, and I don't think there's any reason to learn it--90% of the time you could guess it from context.