scrath

1) An obscure term with a variety of spellings, found only in documents to do with cloth-dressing, always in similar contexts.

1618 half a warping wouthe, half a brack of handls and scraths iijs vjd, Bingley

1703 Handle brake, Handles and Raizing Peark ... Three Shear Boards ... and Scraths, Skircoat. Spellings with final ‘th’ omitted, as in dialect more generally, occur from the sixteenth century: 1576 one shearborde, iiij paire of walker sheares, viij course of handles, one scraye, Leeds

1701 handle brake, shearebord, skreas, Holmfirth. W.B. Crump thought it possible that these were pairs of wire cards, although he was uncertain whether ‘scray’ and ‘scrath’ were the same word. However, I believe Wright had the meaning under ‘scray’ which he noted in Yorkshire and defined as ‘A low wooden frame with cross-pieces used for laying cloth upon’.

dates 1576 1618 1701 1703

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