skein

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“
It has been a pretty tangle for a long time, but the skein is all coming out smoothly at last.

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Definitions (13)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A length of thread or yarn wound in a loose long coil.
  2. noun Something suggesting the coil of a skein; a complex tangle: a twisted skein of lies.
  3. noun A flock of geese or similar birds in flight. See Synonyms at flock1.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (7)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • An enormous knot in the skein was unravelling before his eyes. —  Death of a Ghost - Margery Allingham - Campion 06
  • This restless skein was always seeking the best position to capture Rathere's subvocalized words, the movements of her eyes, the telltale secretions of her skin. —  F ;SF - vol 098 issue 04 - April 2000
  • To go up the skein could be considered exciting, though for most it would mean going into a confinement of one sort or another, and for the duration they would be at the terrible mercy of imperfect systems and machines. —  AnalogSFF,July-August2008
  • I use an empty tissue box for a skein of yarn while knitting. —  The Knitting Doctor
  • There's a Solids Club skein, my last one, on its way from —  Woolgathering
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

hank ·  thimble ·  strand ·  weave ·  floss ·  filament ·  kirtle ·  tendril
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English skeine, from Old French escaigne.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Also skain, skean (in the last spelling also pron. skēn); early modern English skeyne, from Middle English skeyne (cf. Old French escagne, French écagne (Middle Latin scagna), a skein of thread, etc.); from Irish sgainne, a skein, clue, also a fissure, flaw, cf. Gael, sgeinnidh, flax or hemp, thread, small twine, apparently orig.'something broken off or split off,' hence a piece or portion, from Irish Gael, sgain, split, cleave, rend, burst.
  2. skein, n.
 

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/skeɪn/
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