screed
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: business
construction
manufacturing
masonry
Etymology: From Middle English screde [and other forms], a variant of shrede (“fragment, scrap; strip of cloth; strip cut off from a larger piece; band or thread woven into fabric; element, streak”) (whence shred (noun)), from Old English sċrēad, sċrēade (“a piece cut off; paring, shred”), from Proto-Germanic *skraudō (“a piece, shred; a cut, crack”), from *skraudaną (“to cut up, shred”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”). The English word is cognate with Old Frisian skrēd. Doublet of escrow, scroll, and shred.
Inflected forms:
form: screeds
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: screeds
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: screeding
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: screeded
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: screeded
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A piece of writing (such as an article, letter, or list) or a speech, especially if long.
pos: noun
examples: Eh, Mr Henry! but the carle gae him a screed o' doctrine! Ye might hae heard him a mile down the wind—He routed like a cow in a fremd loaning.
I see it's three o'clock in the morning and I've written whole screeds when I only intended to write a short note!
gloss: A speech or piece of writing which contains angry and extended criticism.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: When he [Herman Melville] had finished the first part of his novel [Pierre; or, The Ambiguities], and printed it, the publishers would have nothing to do with it. They claimed they had been deluded into accepting a villainous and blasphemous screed against religion and morality and all right living.
One of our primary tasks is to replace racist screeds like The Bell Curve and The End of Racism with sound economic arguments that are relatively simple to understand and yet serious enough to encompass divergent points of view.
[...] Physician Josiah Nott, M.D., and George R. Gliddon produced an equally popular screed entitled Types of Mankind. In it, they claimed that blacks' physical and mental differences signaled their polygenic origins and proved black inferiority.
One of the more regular correspondents to the club was an Everton fan, who'd send in an abusive screed each time Albion were due to play on Merseyside. He directed this at [Ron] Atkinson, urging him not to select his "monkeys" for the game.
gloss: Chiefly in the plural form screeds: a large quantity.
pos: noun
examples: It uses a lot of footage of Japanese actors, and screeds of character text, making it unlikely to see a European release.
Compared to LOB [the Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen Corpus], the BNC [British National Corpus] is an anarchic object, containing 'texts' from 25 to 250,000 words long, screeds of painfully formulaic entries from the Dictionary of National Biography, conversations monosyllabic and incoherent, sermons, pornography, and the electronic discourse of the Leeds United Football Club Fan Club.
gloss: Senses relating to building construction and masonry.
pos: noun
examples: When applied to large surfaces, strips or screeds of wood should be fixed to float from; and when the plain surface is formed, it is finished with the handfloat.
The term Screed, in plastering, is a stile formed of lime and hair, about seven or eight inches wide, gauged exactly true. In floated-work these screed are made at every three or four feet distance, vertically round a room, and are prepared perfectly straight by applying the straight-edge to them to make them so; and when all the screeds are formed, the parts between them are filled up flush with lime and hair, or stuff, and made even with the face of the screeds. The straight-edge is then worked horizontally upon the screeds, to take off all superfluous stuff.
The use of timber battens as screeds makes it easy to get the floating coat flat. Getting a blemish-free skim coat is more difficult.
gloss: Senses relating to building construction and masonry.
pos: noun
examples: The screeds and vibrator on the machine finisher are set to give the proper surface elevation and produce a dense concrete. In most cases, there should be a sufficiently thick layer of mortar ahead of the screed to insure that all low spots will be filled. The vibrator follows the front screed and the rear screed is last. The rear screed should be adjusted to carry enough grout ahead of it to insure continuous contact between screed and pavement.
gloss: Senses relating to building construction and masonry.
pos: noun
examples: [T]wo workmen, provided with a tub of putty and a quantity of plaster of Paris, proceed to run the cornice. Before using the mould, they gauge a screed of putty and plaster upon the wall and ceiling, covering so much of each as will correspond with the top and bottom of the intended cornice. On this screed one or two slight deal straight-edges, adapted to as many notches or chases made in the mould for it to work upon, are nailed.
A few early churches were floored with a screed of weak concrete, after the Roman fashion, the ingredients being lime mortar and crushed brick (opus signinum).
Nowadays they [PVC tiles] are manufactured with a backing that is coated with an adhesive (peel and stick) so that they may be laid straight onto a slurry-finished granolithic screed.
gloss: A piece or narrow strip cut or torn off from a larger whole; a shred.
pos: noun
tags: Ireland
Newfoundland
Scotland
dated
examples: "Weel done!" cried Mrs. Smith. "I trow ye gae her a screed o' your mind!"
The housewife hastens in the gleaming sun, / With watering-pan to sprinkle when it needs / The bleaching cloth which her own fingers spun, / Stretch'd on the orchard sward in whitening screeds; [...]
No sooner had we clapped eyes on the Leading Article, than, as usual, we recognized an old acquaintance. It is made up of alternate scraps and screeds from old numbers of the Review—the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, and the Scotsman newspaper!
gloss: A piece of land, especially one that is narrow.
pos: noun
tags: Scotland
UK
dated
regional
examples: And it be further Enacted, That in all Caſes where any of the Lands and Grounds by this Act intended to be divided and incloſed ſhall adjoin on any Freeboard, Screed, or Parcel of Land left on the Outſide of the Fences of any adjoining Pariſh, Townſhip, or Place, which ſhall run into any of the Lands intended to be incloſed by virtue of this Act, ſuch Freeboard, Screed, or Parcel of Land ſhall be deemed and taken to be Parcel of the Lands hereby directed to be divided and incloſed, [...]
gloss: A rent, a tear.
pos: noun
tags: Northern-England
Northern-Ireland
Scotland
dated
examples: Yet when a tale comes i' my head, / Or laſſes gie my heart a ſcreed, / As whiles they're like to be my dead, / (O ſad diſeaſe!) / I kittle up my ruſtic reed; / It gies me ease.
gloss: To rend, to shred, to tear.
pos: verb
tags: Northern-England
Northern-Ireland
Scotland
dated
transitive
examples: It's no very like the land o' the leal here—d'ye think it is?—wi' this cauld soakit sand anaith ye, and you in thae screeded duds, and us twa in our sark sleeves. [Footnote: Land o' the leal, land of the faithful—heaven. Screeded duds, torn rags. Sark sleeves, shirt sleeves.]
gloss: To read or repeat from memory fluently or glibly; to reel off.
pos: verb
tags: Scotland
also
dated
figuratively
transitive
examples: He'll ſcreed you aff Effectual Calling, / As faſt as ony in the dwalling.— [...]
Syne the hale kintra's clashes he screeds them aff han'— / He's a gabbin' bit birkie, the Auld Beggar Man.
gloss: To use a screed to produce a smooth, flat surface of concrete, plaster, or similar material; also (generally) to put down a layer of concrete, plaster, etc.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: For this surfacing, the concrete is screeded and then covered with crushed red granite of 2- to 2½-in. size which is spread with shovels on the wet concrete, the quantity averaging about 55 lb. of stone per square yard.
Pouring of the slab was then started and, as the concrete was brought to full height it was screeded off to the proper level, employing screed guides which had been set previously to true elevation, with support on the slab reinforcing.
To screed and finish street and airfield pavements, you need power screeds and finishers. [...] Figure 3-22 shows a power screed as it screeds concrete over 1/2-inch steel reinforcing.
Immediately after shotcreting, the repair surfaces should be screeded to remove high areas and to expose low areas. Low areas should be filled with a subsequent spray to ensure a true flat surface. After screeding, the entire surface should be given a flashcoat finish, unless a finish coat is specified.
Generally, a sufficiently thick layer of concrete should build up ahead of the screed to fill all low spots completely. The sequence of the operation is: screed, vibrate, then screed again.
Once a sufficient area of bricks has been removed, dry sand can be placed and screeded out before compacting, re-sanding and screeding to the correct level. The bricks are then re-laid and tapped into place to provide a seamless repair.
gloss: To become rent or torn.
pos: verb
tags: Scotland
intransitive
examples: [H]ad I been in ony o' your rotten French camlets now, or your drab-de-berries, it would hae screeded like an auld rag wi' sic a weight as mine.
Related words: shred
Derived words: floating screed
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: ферман
roman: ferman
lang: Finnish
word: teksti
lang: Finnish
word: vuodatus
lang: Polish
word: chryja
lang: Polish
word: elaborat
lang: Russian
word: простыня́
roman: prostynjá
lang: Russian
word: портя́нка
roman: portjánka