skein

English

Alternative forms

• skean, skain (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English skayne, from Old French escaigne (Modern French écagne), probably of Proto-Celtic origin, from Proto-Indo-European *skend- (“to split off”). Compare Irish scáinne (“skein, clew”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: skān, IPA^(key): /skeɪn/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪn

Noun

skein (plural skeins)

2. A quantity of yarn, thread, etc. put up together in an oblong shape, after it is taken from the reel. A skein of cotton yarn is formed by eighty turns of the thread around a fifty-four inch reel.

   Coordinate term: hank

   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 224:

     Brau'd in mine owne houſe with a skeine of thred: / Away thou Ragge, thou quantitie, thou remnant,

   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], column 1:

     No? why art thou then exaſperate, thou idle, / immateriall skiene of Sleyd ſilke; […]

   • 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter 1, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, New York, N.Y., Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC:

     “How horribly unjust of you!” cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the summer sky.

   • 1915, Virginia Woolf, chapter XV, in The Voyage Out, London: The Hogarth Press, published 1949, →OCLC:

     The embroidery, which was a matter for thought, the design being difficult and the colours wanting consideration, brought lapses into the dialogue when she seemed to be engrossed in her skeins of silk, or, with head a little drawn back and eyes narrowed, considered the effect of the whole.

   • 1935, T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, Part I:

     You hold the skein: wind, Thomas, wind / The thread of eternal life and death.

3. (figuratively) A web, a weave, a tangle.
   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented , volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: James R Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., , →OCLC:

     He watched her pretty and unconscious munching through the skeins of smoke that pervaded the tent […]

   • 1909, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 13, in Ann Veronica, London: T. Fisher Unwin, page 289:

     But when she turned her thoughts to Morningside Park she perceived the tangled skein of life was now to be further complicated by his romantic importunity.

   • 1923, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Creeping Man:

     The practical application of what I have said is very close to the problem which I am investigating. It is a tangled skein, you understand, and I am looking for a loose end.

   • 1964, Issac Asimov, Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology:

     But then, science is a complex skein, intricately interknotted across the artificial boundaries we draw only that we may the more easily encompass its parts in our mind. Pick up any thread of that skein and the whole structure will follow.

   • 2005, Tony Judt, “The Social Democratic Moment”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010, →ISBN:

     Then, beginning in 1959, the skein of convention began to unravel.

   • 2010, Jennifer Egan, “Goodbye, My Love”, in A Visit from the Goon Squad:

     Ted began to walk, still dazed, until he found himself among a skein of backstreets so narrow they felt dark.

   • 2022 January 4, Mark Landler, “Prince Andrew’s Uncertain Legal Fate Casts Shadow on Britain’s Royals”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     It was the latest in a skein of legal maneuvers by the prince’s lawyers to defuse Ms. Giuffre’s case.

4. (zoology) The membrane of a fish ovary.
5. (wagonmaking) A metallic strengthening band or thimble on the wooden arm of an axle.
   • 1862, T. Hughes, History of the US:

     One of the free-state settlers went to the blacksmith's shop unarmed, carrying a waggon skein to be repaired.

6. (zoology, UK, dialect, collective) A group of wild fowl (e.g. geese, goslings) when they are in flight.

   Coordinate terms: gaggle, wedge

   • 2018, Laurence Rose, The Long Spring, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 111:

     High above the swallows and 2 miles or so out into the Channel was a skein of geese, probably brent geese on the first day of their emigration from the estuaries of the Channel coast towards the high Arctic tundra of Spitsbergen or Russia.

7. (sports) A winning streak.
8. (radio, television, dated) A series created by a web (major broadcasting network).
   • 1950, Billboard, volume 62, number 9:

     All three tele skeins are pitching furiously to snag the super Easter Day tele show to be bankrolled by Frigidaire, […]

   • 1963, Radio Television Daily, volume 93, page 5:

     Three comedy shows from the U. S. are in the CTV lineup: CBSTV's Phil Silvers and Danny Thomas skeins and NBC-TV's "Harry's Girls."

Translations

Verb

skein (third-person singular simple present skeins, present participle skeining, simple past and past participle skeined)

1. To wind or weave into a skein.

Further reading

• skein on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Kines, Knies, Neski, Nikes, Sinke, e-skin, inkes, kines

Faroese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skaiːn/

Noun

skein f (genitive singular skeinar, plural skeinir)

1. (kvæði) scratch, small wound

Declension

Related terms

• (common): skeina

Verb

skein

1. shone, singular past of skína (to shine)

Icelandic

Verb

skein

1. first-person singular past active indicative of skína
2. third-person singular past active indicative of skína
3. second-person singular active imperative of skeina

Norwegian Bokmål

Alternative forms

• skinte

Verb

skein

1. simple past of skinne

Anagrams

• kisen, kneis, knise, ksien, nikse, siken, sinke, Skien, skien, sneik, snike

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

skein

1. past of skina

Old Norse

Verb

skein

1. first/third-person singular past active indicative of skína