skein

1) Of uncertain meaning.

A rare usage of this word, with an obscure meaning. In 1555, Sir Edmund Mauleverer sold ‘three parcels of wood as by the skeyne apperithe … within a portion of ground called the Park in Ingleby Arncliffe. It may be a reference to how the woods had been measured since a skein was a certain quantity of thread on a reel.

dates 1555

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