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APG.American
Pronunciation Guide
HOW TO PRONOUNCE

skein

/skeɪn/

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What does skein mean?

noun

  1. A quantity of thread, yarn, etc., wound on a reel then removed and loosely knotted into an oblong shape; a skein of cotton is formed by eighty turns of thread around a reel with a fifty-four inch diameter.
  2. The membrane of a fish ovary.
  3. A group of wildfowl (for example, geese or swans) in flight.
More meanings (8)

noun

  1. (figuratively) A tangle, a weave, a web.
  2. (figuratively) A winning streak.
  3. A thin strip of an osier (“long, pliable twig from a plant, usually a willow”) used in basketmaking.
  4. (obsolete) Synonym of spireme (“the tangled mass of strands of chromatin seen in the early stages of mitosis, originally believed to be a single continuous strand (or two in a diploid cell, etc.)”).
  5. (dated, figuratively) A series created by a web (“major broadcasting network”).
  6. (dated) A metallic strengthening band or thimble on the wooden arm of an axle of a wagon.

verb

  1. To weave or wind (thread, yarn, etc.) into a skein (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1).
  2. (figuratively) To intertwine or weave (something) with another thing.
Wiktionary contributors

Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0

IPA pronunciation

/skeɪn/

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗

Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.

In the pages of books

See this word in context.

It is probable, that had it not been for this, the prioress and Fauchelevent would never have unravelled that skein.
Victor HugoLes MisérablesTranslated by Isabel Florence HapgoodProject Gutenberg ebook #135
Then quickly they climb up again by the same thread, which they wind gradually into a skein and lengthen by successive falls.
Jean-Henri FabreThe Life of the SpiderTranslated by Alexander Teixeira de MattosProject Gutenberg ebook #1887
More book examples (3)
Just above this loop a small hole through the shell is usually made, and from this a small skein of beads depends.
Charles Hose; William McDougallThe Pagan Tribes of Borneo A Description of Their Physical Moral and Intellectual Condition, with Some Discussion of Their Ethnic RelationsProject Gutenberg ebook #3307
Then stay, encircled by your Southern bowers, And weave, amid the incense of the flowers, The skein of fair romance--the gain is ours!
Alexander H. (Alexander Hay) JappRobert Louis Stevenson: A Record, an Estimate, and a MemorialProject Gutenberg ebook #590
Polly sometimes says to me, "I wish you would call at Bobbin's, and match that skein of worsted for me, when you are in town."
Charles Dudley WarnerThe Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner — Volume 1Project Gutenberg ebook #2671